MoonChild
by MarieMaea
Summary: Duo Maxwell, sorcerer street rat, finds himself in the bed of a Prince, mute and weak. The Prince Heero, who wants things to stay that way, must now learn to accept that what he wants is not always what he needs. 1x2,3 4 medieval AU
1. They Always Find A Way

This story has been being posted on gundam -wing -fanfiction .net . I only just recently got my act together and got my account here going again. I will be posting a chapter a day (give or take) until I catch up to where I am on gundam -wing -fanfiction .net , which is a hefty 17 chapters. On with the show.

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Moon Child

Chapter One

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The very best way to destroy a man, is to take his shadow and turn it against him. A man can be the most solitary of beasts, but he will always keep his shadow by his side. It is his closest companion. He will never expect it to jump at him and slit his throat, or to slowly corrupt his heart until all that is left is the shadow's will, and the man is little more than its puppet.

Heero had read this passage when he was eight. He kept it close to his heart, taking it all too seriously.

And thus, the first time he heard a concubine spoken of as a shadow, he vowed never to take one.

For concubines were the very best of shadows - they were people, with brains and cunning. They were not simply a mark on the floor. They followed all of the shadow's rules - they were close to their master at all times, never left his side. They would follow his every move. They were always in black, with hoods over their faces, keeping them as little more than a silhouette.

They were the most dangerous weapon anyone could ask for. A concubine could tempt their master into freeing them of their chains for a night, and slit his throat while he slept. Their masters confided in them, conveying secrets not even the best of spies could find. All the slave needed was a way to tell these secrets to their other master - the one plotting to kill.

Heero vowed never to take a concubine.

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* * *

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I, King Odiniusi Yuy, heir to the throne of Karen Miya, issue this decree by the power inherited from my late father, Gorenia Yuy of Karen Miya.

_All peoples located by a Thralling Stone in possession of a Sorceror Hunter, shall be stripped of all rights and properties. They shall be declared traitors to the Throne, shall be fitted with Yarani Bands, and shall be placed in the Dungeon of the central island of the Yarani Sea, until such time as the Guards, the Yarani natives, declare them worthy of slave duties to the Throne. _

_Under no circumstances will any persons be excepted from this decree. _

_Signed: King Odiniusi._

* * *

Heero supressed a groan. Out of all the times for his father to fall ill, why must it be now? Now, when the yearly trip to Yarani was scheduled. The entire fleet was ready. No turning back. One of the Royal Family had to go. It was usually J that took the journey, but he had taken ill, as he was prone to do these days. So now, it was Heero that had to go, and he was not at all pleased about it.

He hated ships. He loathed them. He stood on the deck of the Kyumakie, staring out to sea, listening to the sound of the waves crashing, the wind blowing and the soft humming of the captain as he stood at the wheel, callused hands gripping the round wood. Heero glared at the waves, simply because he needed something to glare at.

The fact that he hated ships was not the reason he was in such a rough mood, although it did help substantially. He was more annoyed about the destination than the transport. Yarani, the old castle, famed for its dungeons, which were now fully occupied by that which Heero hated most - sorcerors.

It was an inherited trait. Heero's father, King Jarekshi, hated them also, as had his father, King Odiniusi. It was Odiniusi that had passed the decree for sorceror imprisonment, though why he hadn't simply passed a decree for their execution was beyond Heero.

It was a well known fact that when Heero inherited the throne, the first thing he would do would be to pass a decree for Kingdom-wide sorceror execution. None of this Yarani Banding, no pointless imprisonment, no sorceror slavery.

No slavery, and thus, no need for a royal family member to visit the Yarani dungeons every year.

Heero had only once visited the Yarani dungeons, when he was seven. He had disliked the dungeons and sneered at the prisoners, then formed an intense dislike for travelling over sea, most likely due to the fact that an injury that still hindered him today had occurred during the trip back.

He glared at the waves. He hated waves. They were so loud. Heero hated noise. More than anything, he hated unnecessary noise.

As if to anger him, a particularly violent wave crashed against the starboard side. Heero glared even more fiercely down at the sea as he felt a horrific crunching in his lower back as he moved so as not to lose balance.

He recalled his Healer, Irea, telling him never to go on a boat again, saying that if anything could make the wound in his back worse, it was the constant motion of the sea. Heero wished dearly that he could have stayed at the castle and sent someone else to do this hideous job, but not even the possibility that the trip might kill him would exempt him from the law.

Sighing, he turned away from the sea, nodded to the captain, and left for his rooms on board. It was a pity that even there, he could not escape the noise of the waves and wind, and occasionally the scampering of a deck-hand or sailor along the stairs, checking on cargo, rousing crewmates to take over their shift.

Heero absolutely _hated_ ships.

* * *

The arrival to Yarani island was a cold and hideous affair. The natives, who guarded the prison in return for the rights to their island and the King's promise never to set foot there without permission, allowed the crew to load supplies aboard for the trip back, but flatly refused to allow them to stay any longer, glaring fiercely and clutching their various primitive weapons.

Heero grit his teeth and walked on past them, to the entrance to the large dungeon, which was also a cold and hideous affair. It was carved into the rock-face of the island, and guarded by a row of dead trees that had been carved into strange shapes while still in the ground.

He walked on through, followed by Irea, her handmaidens, and several royal guards that looked highly disgruntled at the prospect of entering the large dungeon.

Five steps inside, they were greeted by three large natives, with strange designs inked up their arms, highlighting the muscles. A harassed-looking smaller one approached, nodded to them, and directed them down the grimy old passages, to the first few cells.

"We have taken half of them to the main rooms," he said, his voice surprisingly not coated thickly with a Yarani accent.

He ushered them all into a large, low room, which was littered with small straw pallets and bracketed torches. The chamber had no windows, Heero noted. Nor was there any source of warmth other than the torches on the walls.

Several vindictive-looking sorcorers looked up at them and sneered. Heero walked on through the rows, staring at each of them.

He grudgingly accepted ten of them, out of an entire thirty. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the three large guards make several small movements, a furrow of his brow, a twist of his lip. He then looked down, seeming to be displeased with something.

_Sad to see them go._

Heero pushed it to the back of his mind as a problem not yet developed, an uprising not yet in occurrence.

The chosen ten were escorted out of the dungeon by a few more Yarani men, and a woman who looked more brutal than any of them.

They moved on to the next room. Again, it had no windows. There were less torches inside also.

Irea shivered. Heero heard her whisper something to a maid. It was out of his hearing range. He would have to find out later what was said.

Irea was trustworthy in any setting other than this. She was to be watched every second while they were near Yarani, near the dungeons ... near her brother's current place of residence.

He picked a torch off the wall and moved it to light the face of a boy, that couldn't have had more than ten years to his name. His face was gaunt, his lips chapped and scabbed. A dark bruise marred his forehead. He stared up at Heero for a few seconds, seeming unsure whether to be defiant or not.

Then his eyes moved down, and his head followed. _Wise move_. Heero nodded to Irea, and she knelt by the boy and began inspecting his head. Heero moved on.

Fourteen boys and three girls were taken from this room.

They moved onto the next.

It was immediately recognizable as the room they kept the ones they thought Heero would only take for the finer points of slavery. Although still dirty and cold, this room had a higher ceiling and three windows. This room was where the dungeon met the other side of the cliff it was carved into.

The room's occupants were not sitting on straw pallets on the rock floor, but were lying, chained and well covered, to rock surfaces that were carved into the room itself. The chains were on every cot, not to keep them from escaping (although they served that purpose also), but to get them used to the prospect of being chained to a bed for very long periods of time.

Heero took his time wandering through here. Several of the girls looked disgruntled and disappointed with their position, others just too miserable to even show any major emotion. Heero didn't blame them. But that didn't mean under any circumstance that he was interested in _changing_ their circumstances.

Every so often, he called Irea and she looked over a prisoner. They usually tensed at her touch, but let her do whatever it was she did.

Heero had taken sixteen girls and three boys (who had looked very unimpressed with their situation) and he was nearing the end of the last row. Almost finished.

A lock of long, limp brown hair greeted his eyes as he past a girl whose shoulders were shaking heavily as Irea helped her to her feet and wrapped another blanket around her. She was then picked up by a brawny old Yarani man with ink patches under and over his eyes.

Heero's hands found their way to the hair and ran through it absently. Heero found himself more disgusted than was to be expected by the fact that it was thin, knotted, breaking, dull and completely lifeless. He let go and it fell back to its previous position, without curl or shine.

He glanced toward the prisoner's hands, slightly satisfied, as always, that the Yarani bands at the forearm were accompanied by heavy iron shackles at the wrist. No resistance was seen in those thin, bony arms.

The prisoner lay on his side, with his arms up over his face. An old but thick blanket covered his shoulders and was tucked up behind his head.

Heero shifted his head to the side so as to see the boy's face. He was met with what was obviously the reason he was in this room and not another.

It was a beautiful face. The kind of face that guaranteed a person a position in Heero's personal harem, whether he had the right to take them into slavery or not.

However, Heero would not even consider taking a sorcerer as a slave of his own. He hated them far too much.

But this boy was definitely coming back with them, that was for sure. He would fetch quite a sum for the treasury when sold.

He called Irea to him to examine this prisoner. She looked at him disapprovingly, biting her lip and kneeling next to him.

She stretched out a hand and tilted his face slightly before drawing her hand back. "He's cold as death," she whispered.

She touched his chin again and moved his face up for her to see it. Heero noticed then how very pale he was.

Irea shook her head as she let go and his head fell back lifelessly. "Done for," she said.

"Nothing at all you can do?" Heero asked.

"I could try to save him, but ... it could take months, even years. And that's with constant care. Even then, it all depends on whether he wants to heal or not."

Heero could see what she was thinking. She didn't think that spending all that time and effort was worth it. Not unless Heero wanted him for something really important.

Heero looked over the sorcerer again. It would be a shame for him to die. He was so young. And downright beautiful.

One of the Yarani natives came to them then, with Heero's translator. The other was talking to him thickly in the native tongue.

The translator listened, then hushed the speaker and seemed to be trying to think of the English words.

Finally, he spoke, taking some time, seeming to have trouble with the two completely different languages. "This one is sick," he said.

"Obviously," Irea muttered under her breath.

"For a long time," he continued. "He is weak, and cannot walk."

Heero felt a small surge of approval. "He can't walk?" he repeated.

"No walking," the guard clarified. "His feet are injured."

Heero couldn't help but lift the blanket off the prisoner's feet, expecting to see more heavy chains binding his ankles. The chains were there, of course, but Heero immediately saw what the native had meant.

Irea winced. His feet were a mess. A purple, black and blue mess, to be specific. Bruised all over.

"He came a long time ago. He was small then-"

"How small?" Heero asked.

The man looked to his companion and said a few words thickly. The other guestured to somewhere under his chest.

"He couldn't have had more than nine years," Irea said.

"He grew," the advisor continued. "The chains were too tight. We didn't know."

"They stopped his feet from growing properly. And cut off the blood flow. That may never heal," Irea said.

Heero mused for a while. He couldn't walk, was obviously very weak, and would probably never quite fully recover. And, with time and care, would be very beautiful. All bonuses. But not nearly enough to make Heero want him as anything more than a harem slave, counting the fact that the boy was a sorceror.

What he needed was something Heero really liked to see in slaves - a certain temperament or quality. Heero couldn't bring to mind anything quality the boy could possess that would make him worthy of a higher position, worthy of Heero spending time and effort in his recovery.

Presently, the Yarani guard started speaking again, despite being hushed by Heero's advisor, then ...

"The guard says he's mute."

* * *

It was a very good thing that he was one of the last prisoners of the lot. At hearing the last sentence, Heero had promptly made his decision.

Irea had hidden a smirk, knowing what was coming. She, being close to Heero, could see right through him, and although she knew he hated concubines, hated sorcerers, she also knew he hated noise more than both of them. A mute companion was probably the best thing he could have wished for.

She watched him easily pick up the little creature, saw his lack of reaction to being lifted, and hoped that Heero could handle him. Bringing this one back to life would be no easy task, and Heero would be the one doing the work.

She shook her head sadly and followed him out of the room, noting that even though at least half the prisoners had been in those rooms, her brother had not been in there.

It took Heero no time at all to get attached. Within seconds of lifting him, he was clutching the boy to him like most masters did their slaves.

It annoyed Heero slightly, the way his head kept lolling back. His body was held securely in Heero's arms, tight to his chest, but he was not awake enough, alive enough, to keep his own head up.

Heero shifted him, holding him higher, and let Irea lightly pull his head up and tuck his face into the crook of his new master's neck, supporting his head lightly, not wanting him to break his neck from too quick a fall.

Heero had them back at the ship presently, boarding with not a word to any of her crew, not sparing a single glance to any of them, though they did not give him the same treatment.

Whispers soon started, the prince had taken a sorcerer for himself. Word spread like fire on haystacks through the ship, and by the time the prince had reached his rooms, Irea following diligently behind him, even the ship's parrot knew.

Then again, that damn bird knew everything.

One of the guards at Heero's door opened it for him, bowing his head respectfully, but still sneaking a glance up at the bundle in his prince's arms. Irea laid a sharp smack on his forehead for it as she followed the prince into his rooms.

She walked straight to the prince's bed and drew the hangings open, pulling down the covers. Heero followed her and laid the boy down gently, taking the blanket from the Yarani dungeon off him, baring a pale, thin chest with far too many ribs showing.

Irea clucked her tongue in disapproval, looking down past the prison pants they had given him, to the boy's feet. "I don't even know where to start with this mess," she mused.

Heero didn't either. He pulled his blankets up over the new slave, tucking them around his body securely, then brushed a bit of hair out of his face, again, being disappointed with the way the hair felt limp and lifeless.

"He'll need a bath," Irea said. "It's probably kindest to do it now, while he's sleeping."

Heero nodded. "Go send for one," he ordered the girl, without sparing a glance for her. His eyes were preoccupied.

Irea smirked as she left the room, knowing that Heero, like many other concubine owners, was now doomed to fall, hard and fast. The boy was simply too perfect, in his current state, for Heero to resist.

When Irea returned, two girls behind her carrying a large tub half filled with cold water, two more behind them carrying buckets of hot, Heero had drawn the curtains of his bed closed and was flicking through the keys he had been given, looking for a match to the chains on the boy.

She ordered the tub placed near the bed, and the girls did as told, then left quietly, curtseying their way out.

Heero finally found the key he had been looking for. It was a very long chain, with a good fifteen keys on it, and Heero could only tell by the make of the lock on the boy's chain which key it was.

He undid the chains about the boy's wrist swiftly, letting the shackles fall to the ground. He had expected, but was still disgruntled, with the bruises the harsh metal had left.

"When he is better, Irea, remind me to personally see to a better set of cuffs."

"Consider it done, milord," Irea said, pouring the hot water into the bath, one free hand swashing the liquid around to get it all at the same temperature. When she was happy with its warmth, she looked to her future King, the one she would obey even over the current King, and waited for his attention.

He felt her stare and glanced at her, a small, rock hard view of his eyes, and she saw within it permission to speak. "Would you like me here, Prince, or would you like privacy?"

"Here, this once."

She understood his meaning, as few ever did. He'd kill for the privacy, but there was no way he would take the chance of hurting the weak boy. That was where she came in. She smirked proudly, loving the fact that her odd, unconventional methods were of use. She hid her smile from her King, but knew it was not necessary. He could feel it. The boy was becoming a King, and the King knew all and understood all.

Heero lifted his slave off the bed, having removed the shackles from his feet and the uniform prison pants that had likely been his only clothing for years. The boy stirred only slightly. He placed him gently and slowly in the tub, hoping he didn't wake. It just wouldn't do to have him scare at this.

The boy did wake, the second he was completely in the water. He opened his eyes, stared up at the future King. Normally Heero wouldn't tolerate such an act, all eyes should be lowered in his presence, especially ones so new to him as these. But as it were, it was likely the boy hadn't a clue who he was, probably hadn't even noticed the diadem around his forehead that signaled royalty. Heero slowly moved his hand to the boy's face, noting that Irea was watching the whole exchange intently, and he covered the slave's eyes with his hand, sliding his eyelids closed very, very gently. When he removed his hand, the boy immediately looked right back up at him, eyes glazed. Then he smiled softly, like he were drunk, and closed his eyes.

"Fuck," Heero muttered.

"What is the problem, sire-", Irea started, but Heero interjected.

"He's one of the ones that like the last word," he said, having noted it from the hazy exchange.

"Which won't make much trouble, considering he has no words," Irea said dryly.

"Oh, he'll find a way. They always do."


	2. The MoonChild

First of all, allow me to formally apologise for Heero's thoughts during this chapter. I had such a hard time making him think about doing what he thought about doing. (because I'm SUCH a sucker for the braid)

To Hikishi - I want that wall and I want it bad. I've never been on a wall before :D

Reminders to all, if you want to see where the story is headed, Chapters 1 through 17 are on gundam -wing -fanfiction .net

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MoonChild

Chapter Two – The MoonChild

* * *

Long, limp hair swept across a man's royal chest, which rose and fell in almost unnerving regularity. The owner of said chest, the Crown Prince Heero Yuy, fiddled with the broken strands of hair, munching on his bottom lip in a most odd display.

For Heero Yuy was not one to clench his eyes shut this way, not one to bite his own lip as he concentrated on the thin, long hair. His brows furrowed in a most odd way, as though he didn't truly know how to push them together. In truth he didn't. He rarely made a decision in this way. Rarely was he affected by this much emotion in a decision.

He'd had a dream the last night. A beautiful dream. A dream where long, flowing, shining hair caressed his skin with every movement. He'd woken rather uncomfortably. Heero knew the dream had been brought on due to sleeping beside the long haired being he had now claimed as his slave. Foolish, he knew, such a _foolish_ thing to do. A sorcorer. Disgusting. The worst _possible_ being on this earth, and Heero had taken one for himself.

Hower, this was not what he was contemplating, despite how he knew he should be contemplating his actions. No, no, he was thinking of the _hair_.

The hair was a bad problem. A long, troubling problem. Heero knew another who kept his hair long ... and he knew that one Chang Wu Fei would not take kindly to losing his hair. However he also knew that Chang Wu Fei would rather his hair lopped off than for it to be in the state this sorcorer's hair was.

It was no longer knotted, Heero had personally tended to that the night before, but the brushing had broken alot of it. By the time Heero was done, he had looked at the hair covering his floor mournfully. It seemed as though the brushing alone had taken half of it already.

So the hair should go. It wasn't healthy enough to stay. It would all just fall out with brushing and washing if it stayed.

Heero promptly bit his lip, drawing pain. Logic decreed the hair had to go. Who in their right mind would wear their hair this long anyway? Chang only kept his just past his shoulders. This great big long mess was much, much more trouble than Chang ever complained about.

So Heero resolved, the hair _must_ go. He would talk to Irea about it immediately. He slowly rolled over, holding his new, precious posession tightly, then let go, easing his arm out from under the boy's head, watching it fall almost lifelessly onto the pillow Heero placed under it.

Heero sighed as he looked at his arm. He could handle the boy's head laying on it. What bothered him was the strands of tattered hair left behind. He brushed them off and went to the chest at the foot of the bed.

As he opened it, he saw his own trusty blade lying, glinting in the soft morning light, atop his clothing. The blade suddenly sent a shiver up his spine.

The blade was warded. It was made from ancient metals and silvers, given to him upon his tenth birthday, the anniversary of his mother's death. The blade would pass through any magic, even the strongest shields. He had cherished it all his life.

However, he was not thinking along the train of thought he knew he _should_ be. He should have been thinking that this blade could help him deal with the new slave's sorcery, the sorcery he had so foolishly brought into his life.

But Heero was not thinking that. He was looking mournfully at the blade and thinking of the _hair_ again.

Yes, the hair was definitely a very, very large problem. And Heero Yuy dealt with problems quickly and efficiently, cutting them off from the source.

But Heero Yuy was acting very different from his normal self. And he had the bite marks on his lower lip to prove it.

* * *

By that afternoon, he had not brought up the subject with Irea. Nor had he cut the hair himself. And he was very, very agitated. Heero Yuy was not used to changing his mind, and he'd done it at least seven times that day.

All about the hair. It was all he could think about. He saw the captain and saw hair. He saw his own hand, and adorning his wrist was not the gold bracer he wore that day, but a thin plait of glossy, beautiful hair. He saw the ship's parrot sporting a long mass of dark brown hair, glinting red in the light.

He got annoyed every time he saw this beautiful hair, because he knew it didn't exist. When he went back to his quarters, he would see the boy, and his ridiculous length of positively _dead_ hair. Yes, it was dead, so it had to go.

So why was there all this chestnut hair all over the backs of his eyelids every time he blinked? Worse still, why was he even contemplating cutting off that boy's hair? What a ridiculous notion.

Heero growled, and not a few deckhands caught it. He'd changed his mind again.

* * *

Duo opened his eyes slowly, and he noticed a deep, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had enough energy to realize that he was acting odd. Duo Maxwell did not open his eyes slowly, he woke up and bounded around, bundling energy in his very being, and yet somehow, that energy was missing.

And then he remembered. The leech. He let out a groan, and was not surprised when he felt his throat vibrate but no sound came out. Yes, the leech was still there, and it was doing its job. Duo couldn't talk. He also couldn't summon the energy to keep his eyes open.

One thought reigned in his mind as he dropped his eyelids. He was going to make Quatre Winner pay him back royally for this.

* * *

The next time he woke he stared, with hazy eyes, at his most odd surroundings. He was tucked neatly into a bed, he was clean, his hair was loose, and for some reason everything was rocking around. The covers were of some fabric he had never felt before, but he knew he liked it. He felt like he was sleeping in a nobleman's bed, little did he know. His mind rationed that he couldn't be in a nobleman's bed - he was in Yarani but a short time ago. One doesnt go from chains in a small, stone cot to whatever this wonderful fabric on his skin was.

He suddenly knew with absolute certainty, that he had died and his Moon Mother had taken him into her arms. He had the energy to put a great big lazy smile on his face. He'd died! Finally! He could now recover in the Moon's light and be reborn again, with no memory of his utterly horrific life. No more Duo, no more Maxwell, and no more Yarani prison bands.

Yarani prison bands. His mind seemed to stop on the thought, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, repeat the thought over and over.

The bands were on his forearm still. He could feel them jutting into his skin. If the Mother had taken him from his prison hell, there was no way She would have left these abominations on him. His absolute certainty of death was slowly crushed, then abruptly shattered into a billion painful little pieces.

But that didn't explain the bed he was in. Let alone the room he could see through very unfocused eyes. He could see spots of purple everywhere. Hazy, but he did recognise the color. Purple, the color of royalty.

That meant he was in someplace where royalty could be, or where royalty had business. Of course, the Kyumakie, the incredibly large royal ship. That explained the way the room was moving.

It also explained that he had been taken from Yarani. His mind barely, barely had the strength to swear at him, _Shit, slavery!_, before it was worn out completely. Too much thinking. He drifted off, slowly, and remembered his first time aboard the Kyumakie. Chained to a post below decks, where there were no windows, and the place was filled with some very, very crazy mages. His body shuddered suddenly, remembering a certain one who had been foaming at the mouth. Most of the rest had been wild, leering, and completely evil. Yes, Duo Maxwell understood perfectly why normal humans hated and feared sorcerors. Sorcerors were a force of nature, and were capable of so many things. Yet the balance had been upset. Too many were dying, Yarani was killing them, leaving them only to be reborn again, while all the other sorcerors were still in Yarani. Which left untrained youngsters able to play with power. And power corrupts.

He'd seen it very well below the decks. Very, very loud, animalistic groans, big and small men and women alike, trying to use their magic to free themselves, then bleeding profusely from the wounds the Yarani bands caused them. So much blood, so much screaming ...

* * *

"He's having a nightmare."

Irea rushed in, seeing the small, malnourished figure sweating profusely and trying to thrash, but unable to move far from lack of muscle. "It's fair enough. Yarani isn't the most pleasant of places," she said, moving to the boy. She slowly pulled up the silk covers around him, trying to soothe. "He'll tire himself out eventually," she said, looking pitifully at the boy. "But a nightmare is a bad sign. If he has them often, he won't get the rest needed to heal, and then ..."

Heero knew where that was going. Even something so little as night terrors could seriously damage the boy's chances of survival. "Tell me you have herbs with you," he said, unable to restrain the slight growl in his voice.

"What kind of a friend would I be if I couldn't supply a few dreamless sleep roots?"

It was only as she left the room that Heero realized that she had said friend, not Healer.

By the time she returned, she was balancing a tray filled with several odd looking roots. Roots that Heero knew well. The roots that his sister slipped under her tongue every night so that she would sleep despite her pain. Heero's mind flashed to Relena, all alone in the castle right now ... with only that hideous slave she kept for company. Heero wanted to beat him within an inch of his life, then help him recover only to beat him to death after.

But that was something he could not do. And it was an unwise path of thought to follow, with a dear, fragile being nearby.

Irea gave him the root. He knew what to do. He'd done it enough times the last year, when Relena had had those odd fevers every night and couldn't use it herself. Then that _slave_ of hers came along and started caring for her instead of him.

He stopped his train of thought very forcefully, and stared at the slightly chapped lips of his slave. He then moved his hand to the boy's chin, holding it softly, and gently as he could, pushed the boy's mouth open.

The root fit easily under his tongue. Heero felt a little dizzy just from handling the thing. That root should put the boy in such a deep sleep he could not dream.

It took but moments and the boy quietened. Heero gave Irea a weak smile, something ever so rare. It was not for this event that she recieved such a gift, no, but from the many events before it, where she had given all sorts of strange things to Heero's precious, ill sister.

Irea was the reason Relena lived, and she knew it. She accepted the Prince's praise wordlessly, giving him a smile of her own.

* * *

Heero somehow found himself still in his rooms with his slave, still completely awake and alert, at what he guessed was the middle of the night. He was glad Irea had taken it upon herself to feed the boy until he was at least able to wake up each time and stay awake long enough to finish the meal.

Until then Irea would give the slave the potion that she made for Relena when she had a bad stomach, the one that had everything you needed and no bother for having to chew. She would spoon tiny amounts into his sleeping mouth, sitting with the slave for at least a good hour before the small amount she gave him was finished.

She had fed him that afternoon, before the nightmare, and there was no need to bother the boy with it again, and for that Heero was grateful.

It was then, with only the moon filtering in through the cabin window, illuminating the boy's face brightly, that Heero saw his slave open his eyes again. They were bright and unglazed. They looked not at all ill. Heero wondered if he were dreaming, as those eyes were not the glazed over ones he had seen before. No, they were a deep, violet-blue, gleaming at him with something he couldn't quite read.

The odd colored eyes travelled up, slowly resting on the diadem he still wore. Heero realized he hadn't taken it off only then. The eyes of the slave stayed on the diadem, staring at it's diamond in obvious wonder, then something seemed to snap in the boy's head.

His eyes blinked, once, twice, thrice, and when it became apparent that no amount of blinking would change who was lying next to him, he stopped and stared with open confusion straight into Heero's eyes.

Heero now knew it was a dream. The slave seemed coherent, and it was far too soon for him to be coherent, considering how bad he had been before. Heero could read those eyes, and they were unsure of what exactly their owner was doing lying in a bed with royalty.

Heero wanted the boy to cast his eyes down. It was not his place to be staring so openly at him, trying to read him, trying to understand. And yet Heero excused it, trying to reason that the boy was still sick. His mind promptly told him that no, the boy was not sick, because he was a _dream_.

Heero could see the ratty hair though, dull even in the moon's bright light. But was that a slight glow around it? No, he dismissed the thought. The hair was still ratty. Dead. And Heero knew his dreams. He didn't get nightmares. No, he only got good dreams that left him with a constricted feeling in his sleeping pants when he woke. His dreams never tormented him with ratty, dead hair, so he was awake.

If he was awake, then why was the slave so coherent? Had the sleep root refreshed him, had the potion given him strength? Or was it that odd ... odd ... _aura_ wherever the moonlight fell upon his skin?

* * *

"He looks much better this morning," Irea said, wondering what exactly had her Prince still abed. He was behaving very oddly lately.

Heero lay upon his back, staring up at the wooden planks above him. He had the slave curled against him, covered well with blankets. So well Irea could not see beneath his nose. No, for what graced the boy's lips was something Heero selfishly kept to himself. Although he couldnt see it, he could feel against his chest the soft curve of his slave's lips. Softly smiling in his sleep, even though he was ill, even though he was wounded. No, Heero knew, he would not let Irea have that.

"He woke last night," he said.

Irea looked at him, furrowing her brow. "And?"

"It was odd. He was aware. He didn't try to talk or move, but I think he knew who I was, possibly even where he was. I wasn't expecting him to be this aware this early," Heero said.

Irea released her furrowed brows and raised them. "You're right, that is odd. Try not to encourage him to think about it, or anything at all for that matter. He needs rest still. He can come to terms with who has taken him in when he's more stable."

Heero's gaze hadn't left the wooden planks. He wouldn't tell Irea. Not about the beautiful, lazy smile he'd gotten once the slave realized that Heero wasn't about to say anything, or even move. The boy had then presumed himself safe, closed his eyes and fell straight back to sleep.

No, Irea would not know of that smile. That was his.

"I do need to talk to you though, Prince Heero," Irea said. "If he's more coherent now then this is increasingly important."

Heero slowly moved his gaze from the planks above and met her eyes. But he would not get up. His slave was still smiling into his chest. He wasn't moving an inch.

Irea looked at him very seriously, not moving from her position, standing over him while he and his sleeping slave lay on his bed. "What exactly do you want the boy for, Heero?" she asked softly.

Heero looked at her, then glanced at all he could see of the slave, some thin and broken hair on his head. "I would think that would obvious," he said, raising an eyebrow to let Irea know he wasn't quite sure of her question.

Irea sighed and knelt by the bed, close to Heero's face. "Do you want a lover or ... a slave?"

Heero didn't lower his eyebrow, but thought of the question. A slave was something to be used and given orders ... and slaves didn't smile the way the boy against him was. So no, not a slave. However a lover was even worse. Smiles he may be able to do without, but lovers were treated as equals. There was no chance that a sorceror would be treated as an equal by Heero Yuy.

"Somewhere between the two," Heero said. "I want the love of a lover, and the obedience of a slave."

Irea thought that was what Heero would want and she grimaced. "The boy will gain a mind of his own. I can't stop that, and I wouldn't if I could. If he doesn't want to fit your mould, there will be problems."

"Figure it out for me," Heero said immediately. "You know better than I what to do."

Irea nodded. "I'll try to think something up," she said. "But there are so many chances with this. First off, the boy could still die. Second, there's rarely anything that can be done to tame a wild sorceror. They don't understand giving up. And third ... Sometimes people just don't like being treated as lesser than you. I'm not saying that they aren't lesser than you, just that some people just can't bow. My brother was like that."

Heero knew that was a bad, bad topic. Never had he discussed the Winner boy with his elder sister, and he had no desire to start. He knew, everyone knew, that the woman still loved her brother, despite his sorceror charges. And she knew that he hated her brother because of them.

"Just steel yourself for the worst," Irea said. "I don't want to see you get hurt."

It was only afterward that Heero let out a smug smile. That Irea may still love her brother, but she loved Heero more. With the feeling of a competition won, he finally tore away from his slave to ready for the day.


	3. Your Sister Is A Blanket

MoonChild

Chapter Three - Your Sister Is A Blanket

* * *

The long haired _problem_ hadn't woken again since the night, or at least not when Heero or Irea had been around to witness.

Heero had enough coherency of his own to realize that his slave was swiftly becoming referred to as a problem. Problems were normally undesirable. And yet this one was not nearly such, despite the malnourished form, despite it all. Despite the _hair_, that was forever a tease of what he saw when he closed his eyes.

Heero had lost count of how many times he had changed his mind about the hair. He had finally settled on that he couldn't make up his mind, so he would do nothing until he could.

And then there was the hearty problem of the ship's parrot. The bird had taken to squawking outside the ship's cabin - Heero's cabin. Heero had half a mind to completely rid himself of the bird, using methods involving bloodied feathers and bird corpses. Unfortunately, although the captain was a good man, loyal to the crown, he had an unexplainable affection for the bird. Heero knew that a fit of rage would ensue, and a man can do all sorts of things during a fit of rage. Sorts of things that would be punishable by death. And Heero really, really didn't want to be rid of the captain. The man was nice enough. So the dumb bird was effectively untouchable.

That day, the third day he had been in possession of his new charge, had passed completely uneventfully. Heero was grateful, until Irea told him what it meant.

"I was expecting him to spark up a fever today. He hasn't."

"That's a good thing," Heero said.

"Actually, in his situation, it's a very bad sign. The fever means he's fighting. The fact that he doesn't have one means he's not fighting illness, and I have no doubt he's got something there. One doesn't go so long like him without getting ill."

Heero idly wondered what would have happened if Irea's brother never existed. The boy never would have been there to teach Irea things like this, so Irea wouldn't have been there to keep his sister living, Relena would have died, Heero would have gone completely mad from the emotion, he had no doubt, leaving Karen Miya without heir or ruler.

Yes, Quatre Winner, despite the boy's sorcery, was a very, very good thing.

"So he's stopped getting better. Exhaustion from last night?" Heero asked.

"Could be. Probably is. The fact that he hasn't woken today reinforces that possibility."

Heero wished his slave had just closed those beautiful eyes and gone straight back to sleep. Not thought about everything. Not forced his eyes into focus. Those beautiful, big, positively _odd_ eyes...

Heero promptly second guessed himself, and decided that he was entirely pleased the slave had kept those positively adorable eyes open. Yes, it was a very good thing.

Heero was getting used to changing his mind.

"I'd be careful. I know you already do, but try not to wake him tonight. Try to make him sleep if he does."

Ahh, sleep. Irea's cure all. Headache? Sleep. Stomach-ache? Sleep. Illness? Sleep.

Heero wondered, even if the slave got better, just how much time he'd get with the boy awake.

* * *

That night, Heero lay awake scowling. The parrot seemed to be chirping his first name, over and over. Worse still, his back hurt, and he wanted to lie on it. But according to the trusted Healer, he was to lie on his side if it hurt. Every now and then Heero let his knuckles travel to the wound, the chipped bone that had given him so much grief.

It had happened on this very boat. The way back from Yarani. He and his mother had come, as Heero's father had had a sudden desire to go hunting. But Heero and his mother knew the truth. The man was scared out of his wits by sorcerers, even the banded ones.

So Heero accompanied his mother, to see Yarani for the first time. Everything went sickeningly perfectly, and then they were nearly home.

Heero and his mother were called below decks, there had been a slight hiccup with one of the prisoners, and a figure of authority would completely erase it. Heero sneered. Slight hiccup? More like an enormous coughing fit.

His mother had gone straight down with them, while Heero had stayed at the stairs, scared and clutching his bow to him, a small thing crafted specially to accommodate his small stature. His mother asked each one what was wrong, and using her incredible strength of reasoning, calmed each one, and they stared up at her with adoring smiles, seeing the power within her, the beauty, and the strength that Heero had seen every day of his life.

Queen Haruka was, with no doubt, the best mortal being ever to grace the earth with her presence, and each slave below decks knew it that day. All but one.

She reached him, and he sent a sweet smile to her. Heero's memory was hazy. This was where details got messy. He remembered the man, no, the _monster_, saying something to his mother, and bowing his head with grace. She smiled, said goodbye, and started up the steep stair to her son.

Heero saw the grin on the sorcerer's face as she turned her back. Saw pure malice in its most true form.

That day, he saw but a few acts of magic. But they turned him off it forever.

The sorcerer sent something flying out of his hands that hadn't been there before, something ethereal that had a core of solid black, and flamed around its sides. Both the mage's arms started spouting blood furiously, but the man didn't seem to notice.

When Heero turned to his mother, the thing he had conjured was embedded deep in her back. Her lower back was smothered in her own blood, Heero could see her bones protruding out of the massive wound. Her eyes were not blinking, and her chest was not rising with breath.

Heero had let out a primal roar, something he had been told was akin to that of the largest lion's screams as he died. The bow was aimed, and an arrow had let fly from Heero's hands before he had even known what he had done.

His aim was true. It always was. That, under no circumstance, ever means one is guaranteed to hit their target. Heero's own arrow stopped right in front of the sorcerer's forehead, the force of the arrowhead stopping caused the wood behind it to splinter and shatter, falling and mixing in the puddle of blood at the sorcerer's own feet.

The arrowhead was then flung, straight at Heero's own forehead.

He remembered a laugh, the same as the sorcerer's grin. Pure evil. Then the arrow had stopped completely in front of his head. He stared at the small, sharp piece of metal, cross eyed because of its closeness, when it suddenly disappeared.

Heero had never been so shocked in his life. He had been spared? Why was he alive and his mother dead at his feet?

It was only after the months of recovery, only after the years of pain, that Heero understood. A sorcerer only spares his target if he believes that he can cause more pain by letting them live.

Heero grudgingly admitted the sorcerer had been right. He'd been told by the sorcerers that had been there at the time, that the arrowhead had reappeared right behind him, and then embedded itself in the centre of his lower back, at the exact same spot that had killed his mother.

An arrowhead is much smaller than a ball of flaming darkness, and that was why Heero lived. Lived in constant pain, with episodes where his very spine would crunch out of place. Heero hated those episodes. They left him completely immobilised with nothing in his mind but pain, and the knowledge that this pain was the very same that had killed his own mother.

The sorcerer had escaped the boat, as every single person had turned their attention to Heero, to the arrowhead in his very spine, to stopping the blood pouring out of his skin.

Heero had been told that one sorcerer had completely ignored him, the Crown Prince, and had stared at his mother. He'd then interviewed the sorcerer as soon as he was able. The man told him that he had been so moved by his mother, the woman so alive, that had gone from pure life to pure death in but a moment, that he had turned straight to the sorcerer with revenge on his mind, just as Heero had. He had been slower than Heero, but after Heero fell, and the _monster_ had started running, the vengeance impaired man had freed himself of his own bonds, racing to follow the man that had killed the woman he now accepted whole-heartedly as his Queen. His dead Queen.

He had sent a bolt of flame of his own straight at the man as he dove into the waves. He assured Heero that his flame was a specialty, and even though it had been doused almost immediately by the sea, the Queen's killer would have a burned, mangled leg that would hurt him at least as badly, if not worse, as Heero's own injury.

Heero had kept that sorcerer close to him, keeping an eye on his power. He now regretted that decision, very badly.

The sorcerer's name was Svelte Tsu, and his sister was in love with the bastard.

Relena was infatuated, and Heero was possessive. He had great gratitude to the man, for causing such an injury to his mother's killer, but he simply couldn't forgive him for taking his sister away. Relena had slowly fallen for the blonde boy, as he was under Heero's nose constantly and Relena was always close to Heero.

She'd eventually insisted that Heero give the man to her as her own slave. Heero had mournfully given him to her. After all, Relena got everything she wanted. Heero had no desire to end that tradition, even if it meant Relena got a very powerful sorcerer with her, sleeping in the adjoined quarters, sometimes even on the floor by her bed.

Heero had a grudging acceptance of the man. He'd done things for Relena that Heero couldn't. Heero couldn't sleep on the floor by his sister on a bad night for her, no, such a thing would destroy his back and could probably kill him if he did it enough. Heero couldn't have her at his side all the time, as she couldn't stay up all day and Heero had to help his father run the kingdom, which could not be done from his sister's bedrooms.

But at the same time, Svelte Tsu was still a sorcerer. And Heero hated him for it.

Of course, the new slave was a sorcerer too. And Heero hated him for it. But just as he didn't deny Relena of what she wanted, he wouldn't deny himself. And he wanted that boy. Just as Relena wanted that sorcerer.

Things were getting very odd. Relena was the one to forgive one for crimes such as sorcery, but here Heero was doing the exact same thing himself.

He had absolutely no idea what he was doing. Acts of kindness got his mother killed. So why was he doing it with this slave?

He growled under his breath at the boy. As soon as the boy could understand his words and survive such a speech, Heero would tell him. Tell him that he would tolerate _nothing_ from him. And what he would do if he dared.

After all, despite the last few days display of kindness and care, Heero Yuy, Crown Prince of Karen Miya, was _not_ someone to be messed with.

* * *

When the boy woke, Heero ignored Irea's advice of putting him straight back to sleep. He had been rehearsing what he would say to the boy that couldn't reply while watching his skin under the moonlight. Normally Heero closed curtains. But the slave was beautiful under that glow. He couldn't bring himself to do it.

Besides, it helped him to read the features of the boy, helped him to see where to put his hand so as to check for a fever that he so desperately wanted to arrive. But reading the features was good in itself. High cheekbones, ridiculously noticeable in a gaunt face. Very smooth, thin eyebrows. Heero watched those carefully. If they creased, Yuy was sticking a root in his mouth. No dreams tonight.

Every now and then, he let his eyes stray to long, dark lashes or very raised collarbones on a thin, long neck. Sometimes he even let himself look at slightly open lips, not as chapped as they had been the day before.

It was during one such open ogle of said lips that Heero was graced with the sight of a pink tongue, slowly poking out of the slave's mouth and wetting his lips.

* * *

Duo Maxwell was a tease and he knew it. He was taking full advantage of his sorcery, but only using what was known as sublime magic, the magic used internally, without causing the Yarani bands to do their job.

Sublime magic does many, many things. It helped the sorcerer's body heal, it let the sorcerer direct the body's resources to certain places. For example, Duo could forsake one leg, telling his own blood to ignore it, telling everything in it to stop working, so that all those resources could go somewhere else in his body to aid in healing and repair.

Sublime magic was what kept him awake at this time. He had taken little bits of strength from around his body and stuck it into his head, clearing his thoughts and enabling him to realize that royalty was again in the bed with him, staring openly at his lips.

Duo Maxwell was a tease and he knew it. He knew that royalty had taken him in. He knew where he was and why he was there. He also knew that his new master wouldn't touch him. He knew he was fragile, and he knew that if the man went so far as to exercise his right as his owner to use Duo's body, he would die half way through. And nobody bothers making someone better if they're just going to kill them, making all their efforts pointless.

So he was effectively safe. And a safe Duo meant one that was a constant tease.

So he licked his lips. He couldn't say anything, he knew if he tried he'd just make no noise.

Regal, harsh, very cold eyes stared into his own. But Duo knew eyes weren't something reliable. His own eyes portrayed complete innocence, and he knew that was nowhere near truth. So this royal could be anything. He could be soft as a bunny rabbit underneath those eyes.

Duo resolved to find out. He stared up at those eyes, reading them, waiting for a change, but none came.

When the man spoke it came as a surprise to him. No change in his eyes, or his features, just a soft murmur through almost closed lips. "Do you know who I am?"

Duo thought about it. He'd lived on the street most of his life before Yarani. He knew, the last time he had been free, a very long, long time ago, that there had been a King, a Crown Prince and a Princess.

This man was too young to have two children, so he wasn't the King. And he certainly wasn't the Princess. So he had to be the Prince, unless Duo's memory was wrong, in which case he could be anyone but the Princess. For the life of him he couldn't remember the Prince's name. He wondered if he'd ever actually heard of it. So he shook his head.

"My name is Heero Yuy, I am the Prince of this kingdom," the man said, still boring into Duo's head with those cold eyes.

Heero? Duo was sure he'd never heard that name, he would have remembered it. It was in the old tongue, Duo knew from the way the Prince pronounced it. But it sounded so much like the word in the new tongue, hero, except for the extension in the middle. Duo wondered if whoever had named him had been making a play on words, or if they named him that because of the meaning it had in the old tongue.

Either way, here was little Duo Maxwell, sorcerer street rat, lying abed with the Crown Prince. He hadn't envisioned a situation like this to ever occur in his life. So he did what he always did when surprised, and just went along with it.

He gave the prince a grin, not putting effort into it because he still felt weak, then he bowed his head as much as he could without using too much energy and lowered his eyes. Normally he wouldn't belittle himself, but hell, Duo Maxwell may be an uneducated street rat, but he was not stupid. He wouldn't unnecessarily get himself into trouble, not in his current state.

No, mischief would have to wait until either his next life or when he was healed a bit more, whichever came first.

There was suddenly a hand on his shoulder, and he raised his eyes, but not his head. Staring up at the Prince, he saw that the cold look had slightly receded. "I want you to listen to me very carefully," the Prince muttered, again in that odd way where barely anything moved, leaving his face stoic.

"I don't want to hurt you. More so, I don't want a _reason_ to hurt you. Don't make me mad..." Yuy suddenly had his bottom lip in his mouth, his brow furrowed. "Please," he muttered grudgingly. "I don't use that word often. I will never use it again. If there is a next time I have to repeat that to you, I will not use that word to reinforce it."

Duo had a brief moment where he wondered what word the Prince would use, and then chastised himself for being so stupid. Words? Since when do people bigger than him use words to reinforce? Duo looked at the Prince in a completely new light. No one had ever used a word to reinforce ... no one except the chance few ... Maybe this could be interesting. Maybe when he got better, he wouldn't be in for countless beatings.

He'd always wondered if he'd get shoved into slavery one day, even before his sorcery showed up. He'd envisioned slavery to be a very bad time. But how could lying in a bed like this one, all of this incredible fabric, possibly be bad? Aside from obvious bedroom activities, but surely these wonderful bedclothes touching his skin made up for that. After all, it wasn't as though Duo Maxwell couldn't handle a little pain and humiliation.

But if there wouldn't be beatings, then this was just too good to be true. He found himself lowering his eyes again, staring at the nook between the Prince's collarbones intently. He felt positively odd in this position of submission.

But he was one to enjoy a good thing while it lasted, and right now, this was a good, good thing. Then the Prince was pulling those sheets that he _adored_ right up and tucking them close to him, under his chin, and he found himself grinning inanely.

Yes, life was good.

"No magic," the Prince breathed. "Ever. I cannot be expected to control my actions toward you or anyone else if you use magic. Moreover ... I would never forgive you."

It wasn't as though the Yarani bands didn't do a good job of ensuring that. Duo didn't need to be told not to use magic, he didn't like the thought of what those bands did to people.

"Don't disobey me. I'm not going to give you many orders, and your life is going to be very easy. But if I tell you to do something, you need to do it immediately." The Prince moved closer. "This isn't going to be easy for you, but I need you to think of it this way. Say you're bathing, and I push your head under the water. You need to stay there and trust that I'll pull you back up, and I will explain my reasons after. Think of how bad you would feel if you fought me, and then a knife went soaring by where your head just was."

Duo's mind completely stopped, then restarted and understood. Royalty got that sort of stuff all the time right? He shuddered. He didn't want to be taking any blades for anyone, not even a Prince. So if this man wanted him to do that, then sure, he'd do it ... for all of about five seconds before he'd skim his nose above water and breathe. Duo would obey ... but he'd do it in his own way.

"And I'm not good at sharing. If I give you a cold look after we have company, then know that I'm giving everyone else the same look, and it's not your fault - so long as you aren't trying to make it worse for me."

Hell, Yuy was going out of his way with this. Was this the orientation of being a bed slave? All the same, Duo appreciated it. It let him know his boundaries at certain times ... for example, poke Yuy incessantly while alone is good, poke Yuy incessantly while in company and he's likely to eat you alive. And everyone else.

"That's all I can think of right now. So long as you have good intentions, so long as you're one of the sorcerers that does not destroy villages, I don't see why this won't work."

Duo raised his eyes, and made sure to give the Prince his most insulted look. Destroy villages? The villages that have babies and small puppies in them? Just because he could destroy a village didn't mean he was capable of it.

Unless it was a village occupied by rapists, murderers and the sorcerers that do destroy villages. That he'd do with vigour. Somehow he doubted that had been Yuy's meaning, so he shook his head lightly against the pillows, made of that very same fabric no less, and sent up another look at Yuy, trying to convey his thoughts. This mute thing was getting harder and harder by the minute.

Yuy stared at him intently for a while, trying to read him, and then either came to a conclusion or gave up. "Go to sleep. You're unwell," he said. Then he slowly raised one side of his mouth in a small, small smile.

Duo started to feel very warm.

* * *

Heero remembered falling asleep the night before after his slave had started a fever, with a smug smirk on his face. When he awoke the smirk was still there. He checked the boy's forehead with his hand, sliding closer and cradling him, letting the smirk reach his eyes as he realized that the boy was warm, much warmer than he had been this time the day before.

Heero pulled the larger blanket from the top of his body. Irea didn't follow conventional methods of the time, which were generally that a fever was to be sweated out. Irea claimed that drowning in one's own sweat was no way to heal. She said sweat had a completely different purpose, sweat came when the body was hot in order to cool it down, as when wind blew on sweat it felt rather cool. Sweat during a fever was to cool the body down, as when the body fought illness it got hot just like it would during activity. Sweating the fever would just exhaust the water one had in there body, making them need to drink more, which could be hard for particularly ill patients.

So the boy was sweating, which meant that he had to cool off. That wouldn't be done under warm blankets.

He quickly changed, resolving he would bathe later, after Irea had been updated.

Irea was awake in her rooms, she instructed him to enter. She sat there, fully dressed, with the expression of one still abed.

"Fever started," Heero said. She blinked a few times and rose slowly.

"Give him this," she said, picking up a small bag filled with crushed powder. "Oh," she said, staring at it. "Right, I need to brew this."

Heero went to her side, put her shoulders in his hands and sat her back on her bed. He knew the woman got seasick. She probably hadn't eaten in days. He was not letting her near hot water.

"Rest today," he said. "I can take care of him myself."

"Have others," she muttered. "Below deck. And a sick cabin hand ..."

"Below deck can rot in their own shit for all I care, but I'll personally check in on the hand. In the meantime, you need to eat, or else you won't make it back home."

Irea nodded. "I'll eat lunch. Food right now will just end up in the sea."

Heero shook his head at her, took the bag from her hands and turned away, but before he got to the door, she spoke up again. "How is he?"

Heero paused. "Sweaty when I woke up. He was even more awake last night than the other."

"Give him something while he sleeps."

Heero turned back to her. "Give him what?"

Irea looked at him and seemed to force herself into concentration. "I was thinking about it last night. Give him something, tuck him in with something in his arms. Something he can clutch at. Something to cry on, something to hold. Most small children have something akin to what I'm thinking of. The blanket of their childhood. Relena still has hers. It's a security blanket."

Heero looked at her, completely puzzled. "He's not a small child," he said.

Irea raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't mean he doesn't need security."

"I can keep him secure. Isn't that what I'm doing?"

Irea sighed. "How to explain this," she muttered. "Crown Prince Heero Yuy," she said, using his full title and name. "The boy has never met you before. He doesn't know your impeccable sense of honour, he doesn't know how worthy of trust you are. He can't place his trust in you, he can fake it for a while, but true trust comes in time. However, that doesn't apply to things. Nobody glances at a necklace and wonders if it's going to up and try to bed them. Nobody looks at their own hair and thinks, is this going to beat me? That hair he has could well have been a security blanket, so to say. Now that it's pretty much ruined, he's got no security blanket. You need to ease a new one into his life before he needs one. Otherwise, he'll run into the need for one and won't have one - and that could be bad."

Heero truly did not understand this concept. "How would he have need for one?"

Irea shrugged, giving him an exasperated, exhausted look. "Lots of things can happen. He's fragile."

Heero furrowed his brow and looked at her. "I don't have one of these things," he said.

Irea let out a dry laugh. "Just because you don't realize it, doesn't mean it's not there. That sword? It's a security blanket. Your sister is a blanket, your own bed is a blanket."

Heero growled a little. "If I can have Relena as one, why can't he have me?"

"Because you know Relena isn't going to beat you into submission. Furthermore, she's not capable. She's secure for you, whereas to him, you're about as secure as standing one-legged on a single plank of wood in this ocean." She sighed. "Eventually, he'll see you as secure, once time has erased the unknown. Until then, if he gets in need of something secure, and finds himself in an unknown room, an unknown bed, with an unknown person, no belongings he used to know, nothing he is certain of ... then he's going to get very agitated. Don't let it happen. He needs to attach himself to something."

Heero shook his head lightly. "I don't really understand, but I know you do. That will have to do. I will try to find something worthwhile."

Irea called out to him as he shut her door. "Make sure he likes it. He needs to choose it, not you!"

Everything was getting more and more complex. Why was he even letting Irea look into his slave's psyche? Heero contemplated it as he walked back to his cabin, feeling the fresh air flow across his face and hands.

He was letting her do it because he didn't want to lose the little thing. He wanted to do all sorts of things with the slave before he lost him. He knew he would be very, very disappointed if the slave died before Heero got to bed him ... or kiss him ... that would be a very big let down.

Something so small as agitation, in the slave's health, could go on for hours. It could create nightmares, stopping Irea's cure-all, sleep. Agitation, any bad emotions at all, could cause lots of issues. Heero remembered what Irea had once said to his sister when she had been upset, had a stomach-ache and couldn't eat. "The last thing you need is to cry out all your water. Then you'd be so parched you'd need to drink again. Then you'd throw up the drink because you can't keep anything down. Then you'd have lost even more water from the vomit and you'd need to drink again. You'll go into an endless cycle if you keep this up, and then you'll die. So stop crying."

Bad emotions cause bad health. Any more bad health could kill the boy. And Heero badly, badly wanted to ram him into the mattress before death came anywhere near either of them. So Irea got her wish, and Heero would look out for something for the boy, despite that he didn't really understand why he was doing it.

He didn't expect to find it so soon.


	4. Sandrock The Carrier Pidgeon

MoonChild

Chapter Four - Sandrock the Carrier Pidgeon

* * *

There was that disgusting hair again, spilling over Heero. It was everywhere. Knotted again and still breaking, falling out all over the place, but there it was, all over Heero's chest. It had somehow draped itself over his stomach and onto the thigh of his pants.

He was wearing his soft riding leathers, and he'd unbottened the silk shirt he'd hastily put on that morning, then gotten back in with the snoozing slave.

Despite the hair, a stark contrast on what was bared of his chest to the smooth silk sheets he rested his back upon, he was content. There was nothing to _do_ about this bedamned ship, so he could spend his leisure with the new slave, watching closely for any temperature changes, wetting his lips with water every now and then.

Primal scents of sweat and body invaded his senses, and as though that wasn't enough, the smells mixed with those of the silk bedding, the smells of the dyes in the hangings. One overpowering scent of the pure royal way of life clashed with the smell of sweat and dirty, dirty hair.

Heero had tried with the hair. He'd done as best he could that first night, to wash out dirt, small amounts of dried blood and dead skin from the boy's scalp. But a good five goings over it still hadn't made much difference. It was as thought the dirt was embedded within each strand of hair, and Heero knew, common sense dictated, that the only way to be rid of that was to be rid of the hair.

Besides, hair grew back. Another ten or so years and that could be back somewhere near this length. Heero idly wondered if he had ten years left in him. He had twenty years already, and that was a third the expected life. The injury on his back could kill him at any given time, so ten years was a lucrative possibility.

So the hair would stay. Heero was not taking chances on cutting it, then dying before the boy managed to grow it back.

Suddenly, as though the slave had sensed his decision and approved, the boy's head pushed into his chest through the white silk of his shirt. Was that a nuzzle? Heero thought only animals did that. He hadn't been in the bed with the slave with a shirt on yet, however untidy the shirt was, and he very much wished he hadn't broken the tradition today. The small face of his slave against him would have been much better had it not been hindered by the shirt.

He suddenly realised that it wasn't being hindered by the shirt at all. It was due to the thing! Heero slowly raised himself up on his elbows, staring down from a higher vantage point at the slave.

His small fists were gripped in the silk sheeting, the fabric curled around his fingers. He had lowered his head into the silks, where it had made contact with Heero's silk shirt. A silk pillow had made its way between himself and the boy, and was being squished between them, pressing up against the slave's bare chest. Silk. The silk was everywhere.

Heero idly wondered where that silk sash Relena had given him on his birthday was. He could think of uses for it now, and they didn't involve adorning his own waist.

* * *

Duo woke, and he knew that the Prince was again beside him, more than beside him, the man was almost underneath him. Duo was draped shamelessly with his head on the man's shoulder, his body leaning into the man's side, and one of his legs was in a rather awkward position, his thigh resting on the Prince's closest leg, bent at the knee and his calf and foot resting between the man's legs. Duo knew that this was a position he wasn't quite comfortable in, however, he found himself sapped of energy, much the opposite of previous nights, and couldn't bring himself to move, or even make a disgruntled jerk to show the royal what he thought of his position.

So he lay there and pretended to sleep. He was so exhausted it wasn't that hard. His eyes weren't co-operating like they did in the moonlight, and he found himself staring at the Prince's out of focus chest, not really paying attention as he was far too distracted by certain fabrics surrounding him. Then the Prince dared to touch his hair, and all distractions and pretences of sleep were abandoned.

He jerked roughly away from the offending hand, more by instinct than by anything else. No one touched the hair and got away with their fingers intact, not on Maxwell's watch.

He found himself trying to scramble away from the Prince, found himself getting stuck in the sheets that were so tightly pressed around his body. He thrashed, and that was when the pain started.

He had kicked out with a leg, and damn did he regret it. Pain, pure in its most agonising form, had swelled up, rearing it's ugly head and proceeding to devour his left ankle where it had made contact with Heero's leg. He let loose a silent scream, more out of surprise, he honestly hadn't expected the sensation. Suddenly the blankets were torn off him, and his leg was in a hand, a big hand that cradled his skinny, runt-of-the-litter calf. Another was on his chest, pressing him down onto the bed.

Duo raised his eyes to his leg, held by the Prince, and saw what the pain was from; a big, out of focus black wound that had once been his foot. He then threw back his head and let loose another silent roar, he didn't know what was worse, the sight of what was wrong, or the pain of what was wrong.

Duo was now worn out, and before instinct could tell him to flee like an open wound from salt, his body had collapsed on him. Then he noticed the fear.

When everything is stripped away, all that is left is fear. When one can't trust one's own body, all they can do is watch and hope that those around them aren't making it worse. Duo realised, deep in that fear, that he had been this way for a very long, long time.

Gone was the street rat that stole from the richest doctors their most heavily guarded medicine. Gone was the boy who tiptoed over rooftops, climbed the church steeple and laughed in the face of a fall that would kill him. Gone was Duo Maxwell, and there was nothing left but this ill thing. The night would bring him some semblance of what once was, but the day would leave him like this, afraid and powerless.

He didn't see the look of true fear in his own eyes that Heero saw. He didn't feel his body shaking, he didn't feel the tears on his cheeks, not until one fell down the side of his face, falling onto his neck, and only then did he know that what he had once known was gone, never to return again. Duo Maxwell never cried, and yet here he was, and there was the tear.

He was terrified. Sure, the whole incident had started solely from an instinctive jerk away from an unwanted touch. But it had ended in complete failure, complete breakdown of the body, and this incredible pain in his foot. And now here was the Prince staring down at him. Not a day after the Prince had basically told him he would take no shit, here he was, and here Duo was. And Duo was almost about to snap, curl into a ball and cry. The only thing that kept him from doing so was that he didn't think he could summon the power to move again.

The Prince was staring at him with an odd look, and then all a sudden he was flipped on his side, and the Prince curled his body up for him. Then there was those sheets again, all around him, and a pillow of the same stuff shoved into his chest, his arms curled around it, and all there was was pain ...

Yuy was then peering into his eyes again, muttering something he didn't quite catch, then he said very clearly, "Do you remember what I said to you last night?"

Duo nodded his head, the movement making him dizzy, and fought tears, then, "Trust me," the Prince breathed. "Don't move from this spot," he said, as though it was actually possible.

He then fled the room, that was all that could be said of it, he fled, and Duo was all alone with his hurting foot. He strained to focus on anything, anything but himself, and found himself listening to the Prince crash down crew ladders, though he didn't know that was what he was doing at the time, all he knew was that there was a great deal of noise involved. Then Yuy was directly underneath him, in whatever place was beneath this cabin, and the noise was there. Yuy was moving speedily, sprinting, then he'd stopped, turned around, and was making more nose as he climbed upwards again.

Duo looked at the door, losing focus, and saw the Prince again, clutching something to him. No errand boy to get it for him. Duo wondered what was in his hands, some sort of torture device perhaps? He supposed it couldn't be much worse than his foot at the moment.

Then the Prince was at him, his hands on his lips, pressing them open, completely devoid of any harshness. Something was put into his mouth and maneuvered until it was under his tongue. Then more and more was out of focus, then it was all gone.

* * *

Heero looked at a small scab on his ankle, and poked it with his fingernails until it hurt and bled again. He'd rammed it into the side of Irea's door when he had run down there to get the root for his slave, who was peacefully asleep now, but Heero didn't think he himself would sleep peacefully for a while. That look of terror in his eyes ... Heero wondered whether the slave was the same person at night as he was during the day. He was wary of what would happen when the slave woke again.

Heero shouldn't have touched the hair. It had meant to be a soothing touch, but it had the opposite effect. Heero had watched as the slave balked, shied away and hurt himself in the process. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Everything had been going so well.

Heero didn't think he'd be able to take it if the slave suddenly hated him. He knew that grabbing him that way had to have scared him lifeless, humans, sorcery or not, didn't take kindly to being overpowered. However, he'd had to, if he hadn't the boy could have continued kicking and made himself much worse.

The only question was whether the slave would be able to understand that reasoning. Now that he'd truly seen how weak he was, and how strong Heero was, could he get past the fear and see reason? Also, would he be able to understand why he had been given a sleeping root? Would he see that Heero was being merciful to him, putting him to sleep while his doctor looked at his feet?

"He's hit it with much more force than I expected," Irea said, still tired and underfed. Heero was sorry for interrupting her rest day, but it had to be done. He would make it up to her when they were back home. "I didn't expect him to be up to doing anything like this. I really don't like it. The fever only just started and he needs rest, which he won't get now he's gone and aggravated this wound, and we can't give him sleep root forever. If he were to build a resistance to it, there's barely anything that even comes close to how good sleep root is."

Heero didn't say a word. He stared, cold eyed, at the hard wood floor, scrubbed to almost shining, then muttered in annoyance. "What is wrong with giving him earthweeds from now on instead of sleep root?"

Irea turned around slowly. "Just because the earthweeds have the calming effect on your sister doesn't mean they will on your slave," she said. "Earthweeds aren't a stable herb. They can do all sorts of things. They're not like sleep root and deathweed, which have the exact same effect on every person."

Heero sighed. "What is the chance the earthweeds would help him sleep?" he asked cautiously.

Irea furrowed her brow. "I really couldn't say," she admitted after a moment. "They have so many possible outcomes. I only tried them with your sister when she was in a period of good health, and even then didn't give her much. I only wanted to see what they would do to her, so that I could keep them as a back up if she stopped responding well to another one."

"What about a pain concoction? Surely if we rid him of the pain he will get his rest without the need of a sleeping herb."

"That would be the hope," Irea said, "as it's really the only option now. I'm just wary of using pain herbs, they're volatile and addictive." Irea turned back to her patient, staring at the foot almost warily. "I'm going to bind it," she said. "I'll smother it in crushed aloe and bind it all in. He's not going to like it, but it might at least help the bruises go down. Though the other foot isn't as bad as this one - good thing you stopped him before he could hurt that one like this one - I think I'll bind it too."

Heero watched her as she left, and when she returned he was still staring at the same spot. He watched, almost desolately, as she treated the aggravated ankles, and realized she had not lied when she said she would smother them. The aloe paste was smeared along past the bruises, further up the boy's leg, and all over his foot. She then applied the same paste to a single side of the bandages she had brought, and wrapped them, paste down.

The end result was two heavily enlarged legs, but Irea was meticulous when it came to pasting wounds. Every globlet of aloe would stay underneath those bandages, and there was no chance they would come loose. So his bedsheets were effectively safe. The only unfortunate thing was that his newfound slave's like for the silk bedsheets was going to take a beating.

Irea looked at him seriously when she was done, and didn't stop her serious expression when he looked at her expectanly. She looked him, right in the eye, with her very pristine 'I'm right you're wrong' face.

"Permission to speak," Heero muttered.

"First of all, don't glare at me like that ever again. You need to get out of that habit."

Heero hadn't even known he was glaring.

"Secondly, about the security thing - I think that we can twist it in your favor."

Heero couldn't help but quirk a side of his mouth. Any other man would have burst into sick, perverted laughter at the thoughts than ran through the Prince's mind.

"I think I already know ways to twist it in my favour," he said, and his thoughts returned to that silk sash.

"Oh, you've found something then?"

Heero smirked. "That, you will find out on your own," he said.

Irea let out a tired sigh. "I should have known you would say something of the sort. But if you've found something, you need to start implementing these methods within ... say, yesterday."

Heero fixed her with a glare. Yes, he sure was able to change what he did yesterday. Irea just smiled innocently.

"Here is what is going to happen, should all things happen as I envision them," she said, and Heero idly wondered why she bothered. Things always happened as she envisioned them. "You're going to give him this thing. Hopefully something big, like a pillow or a coat or something similar. You're then going to make sure this thing is touching him at all times. He'll get attached, probably quickly, considering how little is given to those in Yarani. Once he is attached, and feels safe, you're going to start getting close to him, using it as a barrier, so that he associates you with that secure feeling-"

"So that he associates me with security, not fear," Heero interjected. After all, it did make sense. The position they had been in when the slave had startled was not exactly one of innocence, especially considering that since the boy's bath, Heero had not bothered to clothe him.

He guessed it was time to stop enjoying that, though. Sharing a bed with an unclothed slave that was too half-dead to realize the lack of clothing was acceptable. Sharing a bed with an unclothed slave that was not too half-dead to realize his lack of clothing would end in situations similar to this one.

Heero internally cursed his lack of foresight. He'd been far too busy enjoying skin against skin to pay any attention to what the slave probably expected him to do. Rape and beat were two prime examples.

Irea was smiling at him, with something similar to ... pride? "Heero, you actually understood that! You really are getting better!" she almost screamed.

Heero glared. "I was not ill, woman," he said sharply, but Irea was too lost to care.

"Wait until your sister hears about how you've been behaving, all caring and wonderful, even understanding me when I tell you about something like fear, which you've never displayed in your life! She's going to be so pleased, she'll probably drop a stomach ulcer or three!"

That got Heero's attention. "Really? I thought the ulcers were stress related."

Irea waved it off. "They are, and she's going to have a considerable load off her shoulders when she hears how great you've been!" She almost jumped on the spot like a small child, and Heero wondered just why his ability to feel was so important.

He didn't dare voice it to Irea. The woman would just look at him, crestfallen, and give him the same lecture about how everyone cared about him, how nobody wanted him to be hurting, inside or out, whereupon he would tell her he was not hurting inside, and she would retort that feeling empty inside was even worse, then Heero would be back to where he started - wondering why it really mattered.

Irea gave him a small and flimsy curtsey, then bounded to the door. Heero looked at her oddly, and realised she was on a fasting high.

"Irea," he called.

She stopped, hand on the door, and turned to him, still smiling.

"Will you have it seen to that some clothing is found for him?" he said.

She nearly cried. "Not only do you understand that he's scared, you understand why! Gods, do I love you!"

She then flung the door closed and left him to wonder just what he had done so right.

* * *

Heero found himself holding a potion at around midnight, waiting for his slave to wake, as was tradition. The potion was a solid black color, the color of deathweed. Heero was quite familiar with deathweed, after all, it was the only herb that came anywhere close to relieving his back pain. He had been told that the amount he took was ridiculously huge, and after every dose people waited on him hand and foot, everyone wanting to be the one that sated his deathweed addiction.

Much as it would have made things easier for the courtier's bribes, Heero had yet to succumb to the deathweed. He wouldn't have said it wasn't a powerful drug, quite the opposite, however he had no need for the euphoric sensation that came with. He had no use for a snuffbox filled with death powder, no desire to spend each night in a haze of butterflies in his intestines and clouds behind his eyes.

However the deathweed did have its uses. It could completely erase pain and allow muscles to relax, allow Irea's hands to dig into his back, allow her strong fingers to find the bone that had popped out of place and force it back in.

Deathweed was many things. It was a combination of hashish, the drug used to pay hashishans, or, in the more modern term, assassins. Hashish gave butterflies in the stomach and alcohol stupors in the head. It was highly addictive and most hashishans, if they were not killed due to their profession, died due to the hashish before their thirtieth year. Then there was arbhor, which drove away pain. Arbhor lost its potency after the second dose, and any more than a day under its effect drove a man mad. Then there was svachte, the muscle relaxant of the Svach mountains. All these plants came together in a single field located at the base of the Svach mountains, mingled together and became deathweed, a highly effective pain combatant that had the effinciency of arbhor, the mental relaxant of hashish, and the physical relaxant of Svachte. Also none of that nasty insanity business, provided it was used correctly.

It didn't really deserve its name. Those who could afford to get addicted to deathweed normally only wanted the euphoria, and hashish was cheaper and didn't make one feel weak in the limbs. There was always the chance few who disliked the thought of being on the assassin's drug and demanded deathweed, and that was where the name came from.

Those who liked the euphoria tended to try more and more, wanting the feeling to last longer and have more power. Power is a fickle fiend, some would say, but Heero regarded it more as a fickle friend. Anyone that had not the brains to see they were allowing a _plant_ to get the better of them did not deserve a place in Karen Miya.

Eventually they would end up either bringing out the arbhor and lose their senses, or they would overdose on the svachte, which was normally harmless. Some Healers even had their patients take it in large doses to calm them. Irea, however, claimed that svachte was dangerous as well, because the heart was a muscle, and if it got too relaxed it would stop. Nobody ever contested that a stopped heart was a bad thing, however they did contest that the heart was a muscle, after all, it was an odd concept. Alot of Irea's methods were.

Heero had been skeptic of her, when he had first stood, all alone in the rain outside her door. Some claimed she was a witch, how else could her odd methods be explained, how else could all her patients seem to get better and walk away well? She had the best survival rate of every Healer. Even Heero had wondered whether that could be magic. Surely, he had thought, surely survival of his people was a good thing. Magic surely had no place in something so good as the work of a Healer.

Then he had actually met Irea, she had rushed him in out of the rain, seating him next to a hot fire and wrapping him in a blanket. The thought occurred to him only years later that if she had been a witch, she could easily have done away with him right then and there.

She had smiled and served him hot tea, knowing that his sister was on what had been presumed to be her deathbed. She had tutted at him and said that it just wouldn't do for their Crown Prince to catch his death of cold.

He had allowed her to warm him up, then he had taken her hand and wordlessly pulled her through the downpour to the castle. Heero recalled little of the walk, only that Irea had not pressed him for a word, only gotten her bag, packed already as though she had been going somewhere, and set a strong pace one step beside him.

She walked like a man. No, not a man - she walked with a man's pride, a man's power. She wore skirts hacked off at the knee to form bandages, and riding leathers beneath. She fused the power of a man seamlessly with the care and grace of a woman.

Heero had known where she took that stance from. All Winners possessed it in some form or other. He had no doubt that Irea drew her power from that Winner jewel. The first male to be born to the family of Healers for a century. She also drew her Healing knowledge from the Winner boy, and she did not deny it, although none would blame her should she choose to. Learning from a sorcorer was a doubtful thing.

Quatre Winner was an odd one, amongst all standards. Heero could remember playing with him once when they had both been small. Winner had taken a small bird from the mouth of a cat and showed Heero exactly where the wound in its wing was, how deep it went, what the muscle it pierced was used for, and how long it would take to heal. He'd then petted the bird for hours until it fell asleep in his hands, then tucked it into his shirt pocket and taken it home.

The Winners still used that bird as a carrier pigeon. It flew as though it had never been wounded, and it had lived a very long life.


	5. I Like It When You Smile

MoonChild

Chapter Five - I Like It When You Smile

* * *

Irea had told him to give the deathweed potion to the slave when he woke during the night, as she assured he would, due to pain. She said that the aloe paste had no numbing properties, and adding such a herb made the healing properties useless.

So there he was, a disgusting smelling potion in his hand, and two more on the table beside him. The one in his hand was for pain, and it couldn't be slowly given to the slave as he slept because for it to have any effect it had to be drank like a glass of ale in front of a drunkard who hadn't drank a thing in weeks. The first on the table was his usual meal, of an odd purple color at the moment. It tended to change by the minute. The other one was a concoction of Irea's own making. She said it should stop most of the things that hinder sleep. She had roughly informed him that it contained the anti-stress herb, svach, the muscle relaxing herb, svachte, and the anti-sadness root, svachtesvach.

Surprisingly enough, all three were grown in the Svach mountains. Irea told him that the natives weren't very imaginative, and he wondered why she bothered. He could have figured that out for himself.

He was starting to get tired himself, and he still had to force all this liquid down the poor thing's throat. Irea had instructed him that if the boy needed to relieve himself afterward, which would be understandable, that Heero was to take care of it. He relished the thought.

"Wake up, little one," he muttered sleepily, pushing lightly on the boy's shoulder, which he had very carefully wrapped in the silk sheets. No more skin on skin for a while, he mourned, not if it could damage the health of the slave, as it had proven it could.

Heero cursed as he realised exactly what his mind was doing. His subconscious had insisted he attribute the boy's reaction to being so close, not to his hair being touched. Heero almost snarled, and glanced at the tatty hair. The insolent child inside was obviously trying to make excuses so that he could get another touch of that hair.

Heero really did snarl. He was getting fond of the hair! How could he _possibly_ do such a thing?

He waited a moment to calm down and relax the annoyed contorts of his face before nudging the slave harder this time. "Wake up," he said.

One eye popped open, staring at him, a very obvious mask of indifference in it. The way the other one was shut tightly and twitching slightly affirmed the facts that yes, it was a mask, and yes, the boy was terrified.

Heero honestly didn't know what to do. When Relena was sad, Svelte or Irea - preferably Irea - came close to her physically and held her. Due to the fact that clothes were yet to be seen to for the boy, and Heero somehow doubted they'd make all that much difference, Heero knew that coming close and holding the slave would make it worse.

So now what?

The boy dropped the mask, staring up at him with both eyes now, not hiding the fear anymore, just lying there. Waiting for Heero to do something.

So Heero did. "My Healer has given me a pain potion to give to you."

The eyes widened slightly, as though surprised, then the boy let out a breath Heero hadn't known he had been holding. Heero swished the potion around in it's small glass. "This is going to taste terrible," he said, knowing fully how bad the stuff tasted. He then sniffed it. "Perhaps not that bad," he said. It was not nearly as overpowering a scent as he was used to. Surely the slave's pain wasn't that bad then? But then few pains were as bad as having one's spine fall out of place, as Heero was used to.

Heero put the glass on the table with the others, then turned back to his slave, and saw the horrified, mournful expression on the boy's face. "I'm still giving it to you," he said. "I just need to get you upright a little. It needs to go down quickly."

The boy seemed very avid about getting rid of pain, and tried to push himself up, but Heero stopped him. "No work for you, I'm going to help you sit. You're not to try to help me," he said. "Or fight me," he added as an afterthought.

Heero almost missed the exasperated look on the slave's face. Almost. But the slave definately missed the shameless grin on Heero's as the master helped the slave up onto what seemed a mountain of pillows. He didn't let him sit upright, just a little more vertical than he had been while lying horizontally.

The slave was anxious, and looking at him as though he expected anything between a beating to the death and for Heero to sprout soft bunny ears. Heero decided for the bunny ears, and did the _worst_ thing he could possibly think of. He mimicked that Tsu bastard.

"Hush," he said, and it felt very odd on his ears. He had never spoken such a word before. He couldn't wait to get back home. Things were getting very odd on this gods forsaken boat.

The slave looked at him with obvious shock, and Heero didn't find that surprising. After all, it was far more common for a master to beat a slave to death than for one to sprout bunny ears. Then the slave gave him a tentative smile, and Heero really didn't know how to respond to that for a moment. But it was only a short, wonderful, blissfully ignorant moment, and then the answer came to him.

"I like it when you smile," he said softly. He then slammed himself back into his blissfully ignorant state, and wiped clean what had just happened.

"You need to drink this very quickly," he said, and held the glass to the slave's mouth. He let it drop open obediently, and Heero poured the stuff down his throat. It really amazed the Prince that the slave was so able when he had recently been in such a bad way, and still was.

The fever was still present, it was obvious by the way the boy's face was colored. Heero watched that face with unwavering scrutiny as he loaded the first potion down the slave's throat, and the boy took it without any hassle.

Heero put the first glass, empty, back onto the table, and picked the second one up, holding it to the boy. He saw the wary glance in the boy's eyes, after all, the potion had an odd habit of changing colors, and it wasn't a standard potion, it was a mix of many herbs and broths. "This is a concoction of my Healer's making. It will keep you fed without any chance of indigestion or the need to chew, which you aren't capable of at the moment," he said quietly, trying to keep his voice to a whisper. He had been told his voice could sound harsh at times.

The boy stared at him, wide eyed for a moment, then looked away, a frown on his face. Heero almost thought he saw a little bit of shame in those eyes before they turned away. Then his brows creased as though he were trying to understand.

Heero cursed. The boy startled. Heero very nearly lost his precious self-control, the desire to hit his own head against the headboard of the bed was so overwhelming. "I didn't think," he muttered, trying very hard to keep any trace of his anger at himself from showing on his face. "It is because of my upbringing. I rarely meet people that haven't been schooled. Which words did I say that you didn't know?"

The boy looked up at him through thick lashes, his head bowed, but his brows were no longer furrowed. The boy stared at him as though he was not worried anymore. He mouthed something, moving his lips to form three syllables, and Heero went through his previous words to find one that matched.

"Concoction means a potion. Take several things and meld them together to create something new, and the new thing is a concoction."

The slave smiled at him brilliantly. He seemed to have a lot of gratitude for being taught a new word, and as though he wasn't ready to stop learning yet, he mouthed another one. This one Heero could only figure from recalling his words one at a time and trying to match them to what the slave mouthed.

He finally got it, and spent some time talking to the slave, explaining exactly what it was to digest, what the problems were if one had indigestion, exactly why those problems were undesireable in the slave's condition, and why the concoction would stop them. He did his best to use small words, but if he used one the slave didn't understand, the boy would stop him with two long, slender fingers to his lips, and Heero would backtrack and explain the word he had used. The one sided conversation should have exhausted the boy, but he hung greedily to every word, as though it was the best fun he had enjoyed in years.

"Digest this," Heero muttered, holding the potion to the boy, who let out a silent laugh, his eyes shining, his shoulders shaking. Heero allowed himself a small smirk as the boy obeyed, looking at him with obvious gratitude. "Seeing as you enjoy it so much, I'll see to it you're taught more words and perhaps some letters when you are better," he said.

Seeing the slave smile so widly, so energetically, Heero wondered just why the boy had reacted so badly that day. That shuddering, kicking creature was a far cry from the boy that so easily drank from his hand. This one was not scared at all, and the Prince wondered how exactly that made any sense.

Then he realized the moon was full in the window. The slave was staring at it as he drank. His eyes reflected the moon like a mirror, and it was rather unsettling for Heero.

As for the odd way the boy's skin seemed to become moonlight itself whenever it was touched by the moon, that Heero was starting to get used to.

The slave finished what Irea referred to as a 'meal', then allowed Heero to tip the sleeping concoction into his mouth without any need of an explaination to what it was, then sent an odd look to Heero. He was already half asleep, but was grinning like a maniac. Then, in one swift movement that Heero hadn't been ready for as he hadn't expected the sorcorer capable of speed yet, the boy grabbed Heero's pillow, drew it against his chest, threw himself down onto the silks, and closed his eyes.

By the time Heero had realized what had happened, the slave was asleep. And Heero soon followed.

* * *

"I like it when you smile," he had said, unashamed of the fact.

The pretty, pretty little face had turned to him, unleashing a giant smile that revealed two missing teeth and some that were still stumps. Heero had had all his second set of teeth by that time but little Relena only had some. She grabbed his hand and they had ran, like the small children they were, into their mother's waiting arms.

Queen Haruka, or Mama, was a beautiful woman, with long chocolate hair and an affinity for diamonds. She wore a diamond diadem over her forehead, and it dipped low in the centre to create a V shape. It was the only piece of jewellery the Queen owned that she would not take off and give to paupers she passed in the streets on her weekly stroll. Heero had adored that diadem. It made his mother look like a goddess, not some simple Queen.

"Heero," she said softly, kneeling beside him and holding his head to her breast. "That was such a kind thing to say. I think you've made your sister's day that much brighter."

Relena had laughed and nodded her head happily. His mother had carefully plucked the diamond circlet from her head.

It was beautiful, and richly decorated with diamonds inset into the middle. It had rested perfectly on his mother, in the very center of her forehead, and Heero had known it was her most cherished possession.

So when she had put the thing over his own head and it fell onto his neck, he had nearly cried. Even so young, he knew that he had just earned his mother's crown. It couldn't be inherited like his father's, it was much, much more to him than that big piece of gold plate and rubies. This was diamonds, and diamonds were forever.

Heero had become a King long before his father would die. He wondered just who would earn the diamond diadem from him.

* * *

When the ex street rat woke, he found himself clothed, in that wonderful fabric no less, and staring at his sorcerer bands. They were big, bulky, unfashionable abominations. The sleeves he wore had to flow out ridiculously at the elbow to accomodate them. His pants also flowed out, but that was to cover the things on his legs. He could feel the cool, smooth touch of aloe paste against his skin, however he didn't think of the healing paste on his feet, instead staring at the bands on his forearm.

Sunlight streaming in to illuminate their steel, Duo found himself contemplating the efficiency of the Yarani bands.

They were made primarily of a large block of steel which placed at the forearm, and joined around the limb by very sturdy leather straps which had been melted onto the steel on one side, and chained securely on the other side. There was no lock, and even if there were there would definitely be no key. These bands were designed never to come off.

When a sorcorer used magic to manipulate the world outside of their own body, the magic that flowed within their veins had to escape the body. It did this through the palms of their hands and their fingertips. However, to reach the hands, the magic had to pass through the arms. To use powerful magic, the sorcorer had to summon it from their core, where it would travel through their veins to their hands.

The Yarani bands were situated on one such vein, which would bulge with magic whenever a sorcorer tried to use his power. The steel had a very sharp point on its inside, which only just pierced the sorcorer's skin. It would normally cause nothing more than minor discomfort, but should magic pass through and enlarge the vein, then the vein itself would be pierced, causing bleeding. The magic would flow out with the blood, interrupting the flow of the magic, hindering what had been cast, and lowering the strength of the sorcorer as he lost more and more blood.

The bands themselves had no magical ability, and yet they were most effective at stopping magic in its tracks. All they required was to get close enough to be put on, and that was where sorcorer hunters earned their bounty.

Duo vaguely remembered his own time of capture. It wasn't a bad thing in itself, however the time it had happened had been a very bad period, so everything was rather vague. All he remembered was a foreign looking man, dressed all in white and silver blades with runes engraved.

There had been something else, too. A lot of carnage, flames and scattered limbs. But whenever he thought about it, it all came back to that serene man, the one with knowledge behind his warrior's eyes.

That man, though he couldn't remember the name of him, was the start of everything good. Duo had known, when the bands were clasped onto his little forearms, that it was the beginning of something new.

Duo Maxwell was going to get friends again.

He allowed a lazy smile, starting to get tired. That hunter had been his first friend in a long time, though the man probably didn't think it. Then he had met Quatre Winner, and they had become friends so quickly. And now he had this Prince. He didn't really know for sure whether he was a friend, but he was definitely behaving as one, being so kind and allowing him to heal.

Duo knew that sooner or later, the Prince would tire of his own kindness, and demand duties of his slave. But for now, he was behaving as a friend, albeit one that saw himself above Duo in every possible way, but still a friend.

That tallied them up to three. Duo wondered whether he would be upset when the Prince decided to take himself off that tally. Would he feel betrayed, or just numb? He had never felt betrayed before, and he counted his blessings for it. No one had ever earned his trust and thrown it back in his face. Running the streets, it had been almost impossible to get his trust, and the few that managed to died soon after. In the church, everyone had been far too honest and God-fearing to dare betray anyone.

So how would he feel when the Prince forced him? Would he take it in stride, or would he be sad? Worse still, was it possible that the Prince planned to seduce him? Even worse again, did that even bother him?

* * *

"Thankyou for seeing to the clothing."

"I do hope it fitted correctly. It was only from the clothing brought from Karen to clothe the slaves."

"It was fine. The black suits him very well."

"Yes, I thought it would, although I admit that I worried you would disapprove. Your dear sister told me that you have a dislike for shadows. Perhaps you would like brighter clothing for him when we get back to the city? Something that less resembles a shadow?"

"No, the black is fine. I would see to some jewellery, something that sparkles. I don't want him to blend in with the other shadows."

"Of course, I am sure we will find something suitable in the treasury or in the city stalls."

There was a pause, the two speakers dancing around the subject and they both knew it. They both sighed in unison, resolving to give up the dance.

"I am guessing you spoke to the boy last night?" Irea questioned.

She was sitting with her Prince in her quarters, brewing a broth for a sick deckhand. Heero made a noncommital grunt.

"What happened? He can't have any stress. I do hope you reasoned with him and made sure he wasn't afraid."

Heero found himself looking up at Irea, suddenly wondering why it was that the boy had made that unnecessary. "He managed that himself. When he woke he didn't fear me, or at least he returned to the way he had been. I think he understands that if I were going to harm him, I wouldn't be bothering with making him better. Or at least he did last night and the nights before. When he woke yesterday he acted completely differently to how he had before. Last night he mostly seemed to be pretending it didn't happen."

Irea set the broth down and settled across the table from her Prince. "That's probably for the best. Don't bring it up, just let him pretend. Eventually it will be as though it never really did happen, although you and I know better, and hopefully we've learned from the experience."

Heero grunted. "I will not pretend I am not annoyed with it though. I want to be close to the boy."

Irea shrugged. "Men have urges, my Prince, and none will blame you for it," she said, as though it were an entirely appropriate discussion topic for the table.

"You will refrain from mentioning my urges, if you would like to keep your head," he said.

Irea just smiled. "He'll let you close to him sooner or later," she said. "Likely sooner, if his health keeps going at this rate. However he could still take a turn for the worse."

"I am aware of that," Heero said. "Should he continue the way he is, I believe I should be able to take over feeding him."

Irea looked at him out of the corner of her eye, reading him like an open book. "I will see to it you have your privacy," she said. "I believe mornings and nights should do him well. I have been giving him Shtome afterwards to force him to relieve his bladder, so that I could be sure he emptied into the chamberpot and not on your sheets. Would you be wanting to take that chore as well?"

Heero sneered at her bright eyes and shameless smile. "I would be glad to take him out of your hands and into mine," he said.

The slight humor was not lost on Irea, and she laughed heartily. "I cannot wait to get you back to your sister, she is going to adore this entire situation," she said. "You're being much like you were as a child, and she will be forever grateful to this slave for bringing it out of you."

Heero sighed, sending his Healer a small smile. It did not escape his notice that whenever he did something humane, everyone mentioned how it would get back to Relena and she would be so pleased. It was lost on no one how much he cared for his sister, and how much he would do to make her smile. That was why he felt such a burst of pride whenever he did something right, solely because he knew it would make Relena feel pride similar to what he felt, and Heero would do anything to give her reason to feel such an emotion.

Heero found himself feeling exhausted. "Irea," he said wearily. "I need to send a bird to Chang. Are there any birds on this boat?"

"I thought you would be wanting to speak with Chang," Irea said. "The only bird I have seen on this ship is that parrot, but I will check for you."

Heero nodded. "Thankyou," he muttered.

Irea looked at him oddly, as though his last word was not a word at all but a three headed donkey. "You are welcome," she said.

* * *

When the Prince returned to his rooms, the sorcorer was staring numbly at his Yarani bands. He was idly stroking the silk sleeves of his shirt when he felt a hand cover his and pull the sleeves up over the bands. "Don't look at them."

The slave lifted his eyes wearily to stare up at the Prince. He still wore that same diamond diadem. The boy wondered if he owned any others, or if he just liked that one.

The Prince blinked suddenly, as though he had just realized something. "I need to name you," he muttered.

Duo used what little energy he had to scowl. He had a name, and he wasn't going to let anyone give him some new one just because they owned him. When the Prince went through a night of labour to give birth to him, then and only then did he earn the right to name him.

"Your given name," the Prince muttered. "What is it?" The Prince then seemed to realize the stupidity of his own question, and shook his head, staring comically at his slave. "Wonderful, Yuy. Ask an open question to a mute," he sighed. "Is it a common name? Will I eventually get it if I go through all the names I know?"

The slave shook his head, but wiped the scowl off his face. At least the Prince didn't seem insistant upon just giving him a new name.

However the Prince seemed desolate. "I can't name you," he said, as though it were physically impossible. "Really, I can't. My bird's name is Wing, due to its wings, and my horse has my mother's name. I'm about as creative as the Svach natives."

The humor was lost on the slave, but the Prince went on without explanation. "Are you on the census?" he asked. "You would have missed the last one, in Yarani, but you would have been just born for the previous one. If you could tell me the town you were born in -"

Duo shook his head and the Prince cursed, but continued anyway. "Are you named after someone?"

The slave furrowed his brow, considering the question. He didn't share someone's name, but he was named due to someone else. The Prince seemed to understand somehow that the question was unanswerable, and gave up.

"You need to be taught letters as soon as possible. In the meantime, I will need to find something to call you by." The heir to the throne of Karen Miya looked desolate. "And I can't, I just can't name you. You need to help me. I'm hopeless."

The long haired little slave gave a bright smile to the Prince. Royalty admitting that they weren't the best at everything? Impossible! Surely this was a very, very good dream.

Little did he know that it was going to get even better. Then much, much worse.


	6. The Last Thing He Needs

MoonChild

Chapter Six - The Last Thing He Needs

* * *

"I want to _live_," Quatre Winner whined.

He was sitting on a small cot. He had maneuvered his chains so that his arms were tied behind him, but at least he could sit.

"One more week at most," he said to his watcher. "Then I'll fall asleep and never wake."

His watcher crooked one small, sad eyebrow as Quatre Winner heaved a great, theatrical sigh. "You're in one of your moods again, Maxwell," the blonde boy said. "Talk to me. My dying wish, don't make me die in silence!"

"You dun' hafta die," said his watcher, Duo Maxwell. The boy was only ten years at the time, but he was a fast learner, and he wasn't at all weak like his blonde cellmate. He jumped up out of the cot, his chains in a heap at the cold stone floor. Weak chains couldn't hold Duo Maxwell, street rat lockpick extroadinaire. He settled on the wall beneath the high, barred window.

The bars cast thin vertical shadows over his slim form, a stark contrast to the way the moonlight bounded off his skin.

"There's 'nuff here!" he said, looking up at the moon, in full tonight. "The sun don't shine in 'ere for you, but there's plenty a moon for _me_ -"

Quatre Winner, ever the polite nobleman's son, swore in every language he knew. "I won't allow it," he said when he was done.

"On the streets, sharin's law," Duo Maxwell said, bounding over to his new friend's bed. "We've spilled our guts ta each other," he said lowly. "I've shared all me dead with you, yah've given me ya sister and ya family. We're friends, Winner," he spat. "And I won' let 'nother friend a mine die, not when there's somethink to be done abou' it!"

Quatre looked to his younger cellmate. "I couldn't do it to you," he said mournfully. "I just couldn't."

"There's enuff power for both of us!" Duo hissed. "Then ya don't hafta die!"

"And you have to live with a leech!"

"I've had worse!" Duo cried, attracting the attention of a guard passing by, who yelled something at them, then left.

"He's going to go get Mister Have now, and you'll get in trouble for being too loud again," Quatre said.

"And I'll never be too loud again! Everybody wins!" Duo screeched. "Please. Leech me," he said, almost whimpering. "I can' watch you die, not like everyone else. Please. You'd be doin' me a favour."

And with that, Quatre Winner broke. "You asked for this," he said, and cupped his hand against the cheek of his friend.

Their lips crushed together awkwardly, the fifteen year blonde with a small ten year brunette.

When Mister Have came to see them to yell at Duo for speaking too much, he didn't see the trickle of blood down Quatre Winner's arms. He was far too busy noting that Duo Maxwell, ever the sly mouth, would not talk back to him.

He never did again.

It was only a few days later that the last reserves of Quatre Winner's strength were drawn dry. The blonde collapsed, too ill to lift his eyelids. Not a day later, Duo Maxwell found half of his own strength was missing, and he too slowly fell.

The guards noted that the two boys were but a hair's width from death. They also noted that the boys couldn't move to feed themselves when their meals were dropped in their cell. Months passed, then years, but neither boy died, despite the lack of food and water. Eventually the guards just took pity on the boys, and placed Duo Maxwell into the main rooms to go into slavery. Their intentions had been that either the boy would finally die from the move, or die from the slavery, ending his suffering.

Quatre Winner, however, could not be given such a way out. They were under strict orders that Quatre Winner was never to leave the prison, he was far too dangerous. This comatose, weak state truly was the best they could possibly hope for him.

Not a week after Duo Maxwell was taken into slavery, one line of soft blonde eyelashes fluttered. One eyelid creaked open, revealing a single aqua blue orb.

One Quatre Winner awoke from a five year slumber. And he was not happy.

* * *

Heero had been staring out to sea, lost in the rythmic crunching of his lower back in tune to the rocking of the boat. He was rather surprised when he saw a bird heading directly toward the boat. Even more surprised when he saw what bird it was.

Sandrock the carrier pidgeon landed on the rail fluidly, chirping sweetly. Heero ripped the parchment from its claws.

A small note in flowing script occupied one of the two parchment scrolls. It was a carefully worded diplomatic message from the eldest Winner sister, with no mention of the Winner boy, just her sincerest wishes that the trip had gone well. Heero held back a snort. The Winners knew how he and everyone else felt about their sorcerer heir, and they were going to tiptoe around him for a while after this trip.

The next piece was a longer, more abrupt message, and Heero knew the awkward script immediately. Trowa Barton had finally made contact.

_Winner family was polite to offer me use of their bird. Said that they had heard my distaste for using birds too harshly, and they believe that I am correct and there is no need for me to have to send out a bird of my own when theirs is going. They're trying to gain favour and they're not hiding it. _

_Everything is well in Karen Miya. Three full refugee boats came down Miya river, have housed them in the stables until your return. Spies reported that Chalc is about to attack Sanq's river city, Basqua. Small town. Have stationed thirteen warriors in commoner's clothing to escort peasants through Svank mines into our town of Bashi when attacked. Chalc and Sanq's emotion toward each other is as it has been for the last decade. War will continue. Sanq Prince still captive in Chalc capital. Odd rumour about that the Prince has fallen in love with a nobleman in his place of capture. Hope that gives you cause to laugh on your journey home._

Heero ignored the news of the odd rumour about Prince Milliardo. There were enough rumours about him to fill a casket. What he worried about was the three full refugee boats from the Miya river, and the prospect of even more to come into Bashi, which was full to bursting already.

Karen Miya was a haven. The Miya river flowed through the border of Sanq and Chalc, and into Karen Miya's capital of Karen. Sanq and Chalc were at constant war, despite Sanq's insistance that they were a pacifist country. Chalc attacked, Sanq had no real defensive structure, and the peasants sought refuge in Karen Miya.

Sanq only still existed because their Prince was held hostage in Chalc. Rogue factions, most of them allied with the Prince, took insult at their Prince's capture and defied the pacifism the nobles tried to enforce, attacking Chalc, creating more peasants that fled into Karen Miya.

The Kingdom was full, but the royal family was known for its soft hearts. The King, as a tribute to his Queen's memory, accepted every peasant, unlike the Kingdom on the other end of the Miya river, which had a policy of drawing and quartering any Chalc or Sanqian to enter.

Karen Miya could not keep up with the growing population, and there was plenty of homeless and crime. There were also plenty of soup kitchens and other free services for the poor, but they could not keep up.

The only thing that Karen Miya really had as an advantage was that the Royal Family was loved by every citizen. Chalc and Sanq sometimes got annoyed because Karen Miya helped both sides, but there was never a threat of civil war, despite the poor conditions many people lived under. The people in those poor conditions knew that the Royal Family were the only reason they were alive, it was either Karen Miya in poverty or lying dead in their pillaged hometown.

Karen Miya was not safe from outside threats, however. Chalc and Sanq were volatile and unpredictable, and they needed access to the sea. The Miya flowed into the sea, and Karen Miya allowed both Sanq and Chalc to use it for access to the sea that they needed for trade and supplies. Neither Sanq nor Chalc had full access to the sea, however, as Karen Miya had the coastline. Whenever Chalc could spare a fighting regiment, they attacked Karen Miya, wanting control of the river, so as to cut off Sanq's supply routes.

Heero longed to get both the Peacecrafts, Sanq's royals, and the Catalonias, the Chalc royals, in a room and beat both of them into submission. It would be nice for the whole messy situation to be over, and there was really no way for that to happen but for one of the Kingdoms to win the war. Neither had gained an inch of ground in the last year, so that was highly unlikely.

Heero was not one to miss a silver lining, however. If the Kingdom didn't have such horrible neighbours, then the people would compare Heero and his father with other royals and noblemen. Heero liked to think he could rule better than his father, but if anyone were to compare him with his late mother, Queen Haruka, he didn't stand a chance.

He sighed and stared at the letter. Barton's script blared up at him, ink smudged in places. Barton had learnt his letters late in life, and he did not speak often, so his letter was crude. But it got across the message, and the message was that there was a stableful of poor refugees that Barton hoped Heero would be able to sort out. After all, it wasn't as though the King had any interest in taking care of these things. The King was far too busy being ill and under the influence of hashish and anything else he could get his hands on.

Which left Heero with most duties of a King, such as what to do with the peasants in the stables.

* * *

Duo didn't hold anything against the Royal family. He just didn't know them. He had never lived in the capital and when he had been free he had never heard anything but nice things about them. He had been scolded by the nun whenever he said that the Royals should be able to give the church enough gold to feed the orphans, but he'd never been told why until he had met Quatre.

Quatre had a grudge against the Royals, but he would admit that many things they did were right. He had educated Duo, in those few weeks while his energy reserves had been full, about why there was so much poverty in Karen Miya, why Chalc and Sanq were at war and why the Royal family couldn't fund every church that took in orphans. The truth was, the Royals just weren't that rich. Once upon a time the Yuy family had been the most wealthy in all the land, but now, they just controlled where gold went. The treasury held only family heirlooms and important historical treasures that could not be sold. The castle barely ever bought anything new, they employed the best mathematicians to manage the running of the place so that not a coin was wasted. Everything in the castle was old, including the furs on the Royal's beds.

Duo wondered how old the chair the Prince sat on was. He was lying in the bed, as usual, silks around him and sunlight streaming through the window and onto his cheek, but the Prince sat in a straight backed wooden chair, simple in design, looming over layers of parchment on a thick wooden desk.

The Prince looked far from the lazy noblemen Duo had known back in his hometown. The Prince was reading through papers, marking some things, writing letters, doing all sorts of things that Duo would have killed to know how to do.

He looked mournfully at the quill. It was a pretty thing, but it was not big and flourishing like the ones he had stolen once. It was thin and long, a dusty brown in color, and Duo wondered what bird gave such a feather.

"Wing," Heero said, looking at his slave from under his eyelashes. "My letter-hawk drops these feathers all the time. I have a desk full of them in my quarters."

Duo blinked, wide eyed, at his master. That had been unnerving to say the least.

"You were staring at it," the Prince said. "You seemed interested."

Duo nodded.

"You can have one if you like," the Prince said, returning to his parchment. "You will need a quill anyway to learn your letters."

Duo smiled. Life was good.

* * *

Heero stood on the deck of the Kyumakie, watching the captain hold the wheel in the corner of his eye. There was an odd serenity to it, the calloused hands gripping the wheel, the simple rocking motions of the sea, the constant sound of the waves.

All of which Heero would have been less oblivious to had they not been accompanied by the constant crunching pain in his spine. Thus while the captain stood, serene and pure of mood, Heero stood straight backed and snarling out to the sea ahead.

"We'll be home on the morrow," the captain said, ever one to know a foul mood. That was why he was still the captain after all these years, because he could spot and stop a frown before it hit a face.

Heero marvelled at the man. All of a sudden he was in a good mood. Home tomorrow, back to the beach docks, whereupon he would be crowded by the people, ushered through the streets and to the castle, and back to his rooms, his book-rooms, his tables, his bed, with his furs on it.

Which would need to be changed to silk now. He believed that the Peacecraft Queen had sent him some silk, but he couldn't recall whether it was bedding or curtains. He doubted she could either.

Heero sent the captain a nod and a grim smile. The captain sent a true smile and a quirk of his head back.

The Prince furrowed his brow. Was that odd smell ... it smelled like ... hashish?

So that was where the serenity came from.

* * *

Irea found herself staring at a tapestry, untouched, in her rooms that morning. One of the sailors had given it to her and she hadn't the heart to tell him she hated needling. Heero had been watching, from the other side of the deck, and he had stifled a snigger.

That left her with the problem of what to do with a tapestry, complete with dyed wools. She sighed and carefully packed it away. To Relena it would go.

She left her rooms, completely unprepared for the scene outside of them. The moment she stepped outside the one who had gifted her and probably a friend of his, turned to her, scowling.

Then the gift giver gave his friend a fist in the face, and Irea fell back on her previous thoughts. Not a friend then. The two then errupted into a struggle, all fists and burly shoulders. She considered backing into her rooms briefly, but the two sailors crashed against a wooden wall, and she took the free space in the hall to dart past them.

Her very first thought was to find Heero. Her second was to find the captain and tell him two of his sailors were at each others throats. Her third was that she didn't need to go get the captain, he had definately heard the noise, so she should run to Heero. Her fourth thought was that there was a scuffle below decks, and shit, she had a patient above decks who would undoubtedly have heard all this.

Charges before all else, after all she was a true Healer. She'd head to the Prince's rooms to check the ill even if the two fighters were aiming at _her_, not each other.

And so she bolted, her skirts ruffling her leather clad knees, until she reached above deck. Heaven knew where Heero was, but the boy could have done anything at the loud noises. He could have fallen, knocked his ankles on the hard wood, could have been so shocked and afraid he vomited, could be choking on said vomit right now ...

Her key to Heero's rooms was in her hands and at the lock quickly, after all, she was used to running to Heero's rooms to cure ailment, of course now the cured was a different person, but that didn't change the fact that she had a spare key to the Prince's room, and she was damn well using it.

The door opened freely and she slipped inside. The hangings were drawn, which Heero had a tendancy of doing whenever he occupied a bedroom that had a direct door into the hall. It was no good for someone to come into the room and see the bed's occupant immediately ... all sorts of things could be going on.

She closed the door. There was no noise in the room but the door hitting the frame and the distant sounds of a scuffle. There were a million things that could explain the silence, the first that the boy was mute and any screaming he made wouldn't be heard. She also couldn't hear any thrashing around or spluttering. Good, she hoped, because if he was gone already... She drew open the hangings.

Only to find the boy completely asleep. Irea frowned. Slept through it? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? She hoped it was good.

Then the boy was fluttering his eyes, she had woken him with the curtains, and was slowly raising his eyes to her and a new problem presented itself. She was here with the boy without Heero. The Prince, the only constant in the last few days, the one that had not harmed the boy at all since his arrival, was not here.

Which left the slave all alone with her, the one he'd not even seen yet, a complete stranger.

The boy's eyes were lifting, where they promptly stopped at her breast.

She widened her eyes in shock. Was he openly ... ogling at her? Granted, she didn't have much experience with men, but that was definitely an open stare. The question was, was it sexual? Or was he just amazed at seeing a female? They did group them by gender in Yarani. She had hoped the boy wouldn't fancy females, after all, he would be intimately serving the Prince. She'd thought because he was so little - and that hair - that he'd at least be open to men.

Or was it ... Her brain slowly started to digest the information. His eyes were not roaming her shirt, going over both her breasts. They were still in one spot at the centre of them. She let out the breath she had been holding, only supplying in short gasps ever since she left her rooms.

The boy was looking at the Winner amulet. It was a bulky thing, silver and flat and almost round, with the Winner insignia carved into it. All Winners wore one.

The boy then contentedly lowered his eyelids and went straight back to sleep. He never even looked her in the eye.

She pulled the hangings and left the rooms, locking them after her. She would probably find Heero outside her own rooms, watching the captain sort out the fight. She needed to tell him the boy had been checked on and was well, also that he'd woken and gone back to sleep, that she needed to be introduced to him before another incident like this so that the boy wasn't afraid to be alone with her.

But she would not tell him about the way the boy had soothed immediately upon spotting the pendant around her neck. No, that would only aggravate the Prince. He would start wondering why the amulet settled the boy, whether he had seen it before, then he would undoubtedly come to the conclusion that the boy had seen it before, and there was only one place he would have encountered it. Yarani, on Quatre. And the last thing the slave needed was to be associated with Quatre Winner.


	7. Luna

To the reader that asked why Quatre is a prisoner, his particular situation is explained in detail later in the story, however, at the moment it suffices to say 'He can read minds, conjure fire and prevent death, the rest of the world can't. Wouldn't YOU be jealous? And a little scared too. Just a little. Crap, let's lock him up just to be safe.' That's pretty much the view of the entire non-magical community in this story. A similar thing would probably happen in the real world if someone with Quatre's abilities showed up. Basically, there's no stopping him. He's worse than all the world's nuclear weapons and hazardous materials, weapons of mass destruction and God put together. We'd all be terrified if one human being showed up with that sort of power. It's scarier than the thought of George Bush and Kevin Rudd having kinky bondage sex. You probably gotta be Aussie to get that one though ...

I would also like to add, probably also something that you have to be Aussie to understand, that whenever I reread "not happy" in referance to Quatre's mood in the previous chapter, I get a sudden need to say or think very loudly the words "Not happy Jan!" ((www . youtube . com / watch? v 2akt3P8ltLM) This expression is part of the Australian language.)

I will from now on be adding two chapters at a time. I'm just not catching up fast enough to where the story is currently at. I just finished scenes loosely up to chapter 21, and on the other site the story is at, I've just added chapter 18. I need to get the story on this archive up faster, so the reviews stop confusing me. "Hang on, what happened in the chapter I just uploaded?" has been going on for a while now. I hope nobody will complain ... but from the encouragement of readers I reckon I'm likely to get that wish. It's good to be confident!

MoonChild

Chapter Seven - Luna

* * *

"I need to look at his mouth and throat," said Irea Winner over dinner. "Need to know if his being mute is just a vow of silence or something equally stupid, or if there's something wrong there."

"It's not a vow," Heero said, tearing through a sailor's biscuit with his front teeth. "I saw him try to scream when he hit his ankle on me."

Irea raised an eyebrow. "And?" she pressed.

"And nothing. He's mute," Heero said.

"That's not right," she said, setting down her soup bowl, tutting. She leaned back in her chair, cocked her head to her left and crunched her brow. "If he's mute, then he would have been from birth. If he has never been able to talk, then where did the instinct to scream come from?"

Heero set down a silver spoon on the table slowly. "Either way, he can't speak now," he said, picking up a goblet and draining it.

"But he could in the past," Irea said. "Maybe he has been wounded, or an odd illness. I've never heard of an illness taking a voice away," she said, still thinking hard. "It is possible to lose the use of the voice after being strangled, but that's only temporary, and if that were the case I would have seen the marks on his neck."

Heero swallowed a particularly tasteless bite of sailor's biscuit. "And Yarani would have informed us," he agreed. "Is there any other way it could have happened?"

Irea shook her head, food abandoned. "Not that comes to mind. I'd need to look at him. It may be that I am forgetting something."

And so it was settled that Irea would take a look at the slave's neck and throat.

"Oh and it will help if he is awake," she said. "Have me summoned when next he wakes."

Heero snorted, pushing his half empty plate away from him. Irea, never one to miss a thing, glared at the remaining sailor's biscuits and the almost full bowl of soup, as though ordering them both to hop into her precious Prince's stomach. Wisely, she didn't mention it. If Heero was not in the mood to eat, then he was also not in the mood to talk about it.

"Won't bother," Heero muttered. "I need to wake him to feed him now anyway."

Thus saw Heero and his Healer in Heero's cabin that evening, shortly after dinner, Irea closing the door behind them with precision and care, sliding the bolt closed. A bed slave was about to bare his face and skin, there could not be a chance of any unpermitted eyes to see.

Heero sighed, looking down at the creature on the bed, who seemed to stir under the gaze, lifting two eyelids slowly. His eyes then darted to Irea, a scowl appearing on his face. Heero then did something that came perfectly naturally to him, but made his Healer widen her eyes and sharply intake breath in surprise. The Crown Prince kneeled before a lowly bed slave, bringing their faces to the same level.

Few things truly surprised Irea Winner. She had been conditioned by her brother to expect the unexpected, after all, her very profession was to deal with the human body and mind, and few things are as complex and filled with the unknown. However to see the way her Prince was acting, the man she had known since he was but a boy, the man she had tried so hard for so long to teach to love...

Heero Yuy, the one who had resisted all attempts to extricate him from his shell for so long, was leaving his shell of his own volition all due to a boy he had not known for a month. How very odd of him.

Heero was coaxing his slave in a low whisper that Irea could barely hear. "This is my Healer," he said, "She knows you but you do not yet know her. Her name is Irea, she is a trusted companion of mine. She bound your feet and made that potion that made the pain go away."

The scene before the Healer unfolded, leaving her mystified. The slave stared at her a second before he slowly drew the scowl from his face and gave her a small, sheepish nod.

"Prince, would you let me speak to him?" Irea questioned lightly. Heero looked to her and nodded, grunting as he rose. Irea did not miss that one of his hands twitched to steady his back as he rose. She also didn't miss that he held it back rather forcefully.

Irea settled on her knees by the bed, giving the boy a weak but reassuring smile. "It's all right," she said. "You're not in trouble and I'm not going to hurt you."

The boy squinted at her, distrust quite plain on his face.

"I'm trying to help you get better," she said, as though talking to a very small child, which in a sense, she was. "I've done all I can for your feet, and now they just need time. But I need to know whether there's something wrong with your voice."

The slave scowled and buried his face in Heero's silk pillow. He was not interested.

"Can you make a sound at all?" Irea pressed, and watched as thin strands of once beautiful silken hair swayed from side to side, the head they belonged to shaking mournfully into a silk pillow. Irea sighed. "Will you try?"

The boy looked up at her, giving her a scowl, then opened his mouth wide, his face scrunched. She saw the muscles in his neck tense, weak and shaking, as the boy let out what would have been a very frustrated, loud, hoarse yell had he been able to make a sound.

Heero promptly started laughing hysterically. Surprised by the sound, Irea turned to him, scowling. "And you encourage that sort of behaviour?" she said haughtily.

Her Prince's laugh died down to a low snigger. "You asked him to try," he said.

Irea just shook her head and gave them both a playful glare before turning back to the slave. "Do you know how it happened?" she asked. "I need to know that it's not a danger to your health."

She frowned as the boy stared back at her, making no move to answer her question, just giving her a sullen, immature look that said quite clearly, 'I don't like you enough to tell you anything'.

Heero raised an eyebrow. He had expected the boy to try to tell her everything he knew. This sullen creature that didn't want to co-operate was a far cry from what he had expected. Why would he not speak with the Healer? Surely the sorcorer didn't _want_ to be mute?

That didn't change the fact that Heero did, and if the boy didn't want Irea poking around in his throat trying to make things better, then Heero heartily agreed. He had taken the boy because he didn't want someone that spoke ... ever.

Irea needed to know that no matter how much she wanted to 'fix' this boy, she could only fix what Heero wanted her to, and the voice was not one of those things.

However, if there was something _wrong_, if there was something that could hurt the boy, Irea needed to fix it. Heero would prefer live and talking to dead and silent. So he stepped in, putting a hand on his Healer's slim shoulder. She took a hint and rose, moving away to sit in the high wooden chair Heero had occupied earlier.

"You don't want to talk to her, fine. I prefer your silence," he said blankly. "But you will allow her to look at you. If this problem is a danger to your health I want it gone, now." He sighed, a very sudden huff of breath, then put a hand on the cheek of his slave, caressing it with his thumb fondly. "Does it hurt you?" he asked carefully. "I need to know if you think it is bad for you."

The slave looked the Prince in the eye for a moment, and was reprimanded by a stern glare from the Prince, to which he returned with a sullen frown before shaking his head.

"It doesn't hurt," Heero clarified, and the slave nodded. "You don't think it is a problem?" he said, and the slave nodded again.

The Prince bit his lip and turned to his Healer. "I won't allow you to press this. You know well why I took him. I will allow you to look at him, but you will not treat it unless you believe it could harm him."

The Healer nodded, unhappy with it but knowing she hadn't a choice. She would hate to have a patient with an illness she wasn't allowed to try to cure, but what Heero said went. So she sighed and went to the bedside by her Prince. "Straighten him up for me. He doesn't have to sit up, but remove the pillows and roll him on his back. I will need access to his throat and mouth."

Heero grunted and put a hand on the slave's shoulder, stilling him from moving himself. The slave gave an indignant huff but allowed Heero to slowly roll him over onto his back and straighten his torso. Heero then threw the pillows onto the other side of the bed and lowered his slave's head down onto the mattress, leaning over to place a soft kiss on the boy's forehead. "If anything she does hurts you, or you get uncomfortable, just raise your hand a little. I'll stop it then and there," he murmured into the youth's skin, then placed another kiss at the same spot and drew back, placing himself in the straight wooden chair.

Irea ignored the exchange and approached the slave, but stopped obediently when Heero spoke. "You will touch him as little as possible," he said promptly, scrutinizing both his slave and his Healer. Irea just nodded and went to the boy, who was glaring up at the rafters, frowning, but he didn't do any more than flinch away when she put her hands to his neck.

It seemed forever for both the slave and the Prince that she pressed on different places of his throat. Every now and then she would put a hand on her own neck and feel the same spot, as though comparing.

"His heart is steadier than it was that first day," she said to the Prince. "Come here and feel it. It's a good way to tell how he is in health."

The Prince rose and put two fingers to the boy's neck in the spot where Irea's were. "It will be helpful for me if you can keep a tab on how this is. The stronger and faster the pulses are the better. Slow and faint, and especially if they're out of rythm, mean his heart is weak. I will be happy when his heart beats similarly to yours."

She watched as the Prince felt around his own neck for the beat, and when he found it he nodded. "It has a long way to go," he said simply.

She returned both her hands to the boy's neck, one on either side, and he shied, flinching and quickening his breath, squeezing his eyes shut. Irea drew her hands back and he quietened considerably.

"One hand," Heero muttered. "Two looks like you're throttling him."

Irea made a note that somehow Heero knew what exactly the problem was. How could he see into the mind of the slave? Surely the boy didn't think she would try to harm him. He shouldn't even have thought about being strangled. He had been but a child when he went into Yarani and nothing of the sort goes on in there, surely the boy hadn't been harmed when he was but a child, so why was he afraid of being hurt just because hands were at his neck? What kind of parents had the boy had?

Nonetheless, she made sure not to scare him with both hands again.

"Open your mouth," she said, when finally she had made sure there were no lumps or tender spots in his throat and neck. The boy obeyed cautiously, and she peered in past his poor teeth to the back of his throat. She saw nothing disagreeable, but then her eyes strayed to the boy's teeth again.

"Heero," she said softly. "When I looked him over that first day, I'm sure that I saw one or two black marks on his teeth."

"And? That is normal, teeth decay in the lower classes. They don't know or have the time to clean them daily," the Prince said.

"And I don't see any now," Irea said, furrowing her brow.

Heero glanced up at her. "Odd," he said, but didn't make any more of it.

Irea shrugged, then looked at the slave. "Could that be your sorcery? I've heard ... my brother -"

"Healer!" the Prince snapped. "You will refrain from mentioning your brother," he growled.

Irea swallowed and nodded, bowing her head. "I've been told that sorcerers can heal themselves far better than normal people," she said lowly. "Would the black marks have gone by sorcery?" she asked.

The boy closed his eyes, tense, then shrugged. He knew the Prince and his Healer were looking at him, scrutinising his every move, and he wouldn't give them an answer that would make them mad. Sublime healing was something his body did of its own accord, and he would not let himself be punished for it.

The Prince looked away before he spoke. "My Healer and I will pretend that the marks weren't there to begin with. There is no way to prove otherwise. As for magic, I am sure that you know how uncontrollably mad I would be should you use it," he said to the boy, still staring at the wooden walls.

The slave made no move. He knew he was in for some trouble there. He was healing fast and he couldn't stop that, he also couldn't stop things that didn't repair on normal people from repairing. The Prince would notice and he would go through hell for it, but he wasn't going to dispute this yet. His being here with the help of a Healer, well fed and well sheltered, was too much of a good thing to risk losing.

A hand was at his neck again presently. "Try to speak again," said the Healer.

The boy obeyed, opening his mouth and letting out a silent groan.

Irea's eyes widened. "That is odd," she said. "Keep speaking," she ordered, and the boy did. She felt up the centre of his neck and down again, furrowing her brow, then sighed. "I have no clue as to what this is," she said. "It could be dangerous, it could be not. It's not an injury, it's not a growth or lump, and nothing seems to hurt to touch. It's also odd that all the normal things one does to speak are happening, but sound isn't coming when I can find no reason for it not to."

Heero frowned. "All the things one does to speak?" he asked.

Irea nodded. "His throat is vibrating, sound is travelling from here," she said, pointing to the boy's collar, "up to here," she pointed to his jaw, "and getting lost somewhere around the back of his mouth, which should be impossible. If it reaches your mouth, it should just flow out, not get caught in there. There's nothing to catch _on_."

Heero digged his brows together, then looked at the slave pointedly and almost angrily, then looked away very quickly. "I need to speak with WuFei about it. It could be magic," he said, sullen.

The slave didn't move. He tried to remove himself from the centre of attention by rolling back onto his side and curling up, trying to make himself small, but all it served was an angry royal staring at him. "You're not to move on your own!" the Prince snapped. "You're not to waste your energy!" he snarled.

The slave curled in further, flinching at every word. He was much better than before but he was not able to fight anything or anyone, least of all an angry, trained, fit and healthy Prince. The timing was also very bad. During the day, when he was weak, he was mostly useless.

"Heero, I think we can forgive him for rolling over," she said softly, diplomatically. "I know you're mad about the prospect of magic and all, but I'm sure that the slave wouldn't have done it himself, if magic has anything to do with it at all. Why would anyone _want_ to be mute?" she asked, smiling sweetly, reassuringly, down at the curled up slave, who blinked at her, not expecting to be defended, and sent her a weak twist upward of one side of his lip.

Heero sighed, closing his eyes. "You may leave us, Irea," he said wearily.

Irea bit her lip and rose, walking to the door. "I will advise no punishment, verbal or physical, for at least another month," she said sternly. "I don't care what you're mad at him for. I will take no responsibility for his health if you let him think you're going to hurt him," she said, then walked stiffly out the door.

"Fornication under consent of the King," Heero muttered under his breath. "Why must everyone assume that every time I get mad I will have someone whipped?"

The slave raised his eyes and stared pointedly at Heero's diamond diadem. Because he was royalty, that was why.

Heero leaned forward in the chair and rested his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. The position hurt his back and he snarled, getting up very quickly, tense and annoyed. "I'm sorry," he said to the slave, who flinched as if hurt at the words. Royalty had said the word 'sorry'. Tomorrow the sky would fall down and crush them all.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Heero said. "I'm just frustrated. It's the boat, and the sorcery, and the waves. I hate ships and I hate the sea and I hate sorcerers. It's not your fault. You're perfect," he said, looking down at his slave, sitting on the bed beside him and reaching for the pillows to tuck back underneath his head. "You're the best thing on this ship, despite your magic," he spat out the word. "You're silent, and beautiful, and obedient, and you've the most beautiful hair I've ever seen," he said, mournfully staring at said hair. It was more knotted than it had been the day before, and badly needed another wash.

Heero sighed. He wouldn't trouble the slave with that, not now when he was already weary and scared. Heero closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he realized how exhausted the slave looked. "You've been awake for too long," Heero said wearily. "Rest. Soon we will be back in Karen, away from boats and sailors, and you will sleep well in my bed at home."

Heero looked to the slave, who had shut his eyes, and was lying contentedly with his head upon Heero's silk pillow, that same small black one that Heero had pushed into his arms before. Heero lifted the boy's head and moved the pillow so that it was cuddled in his arms again, pressed to his chest. "Go to sleep," he said quietly, and slipped into the covers to do just that as well.

* * *

That night saw Duo Maxwell, the street rat, and Heero Yuy, the Crown Prince, curled up under silk sheets. The Prince had pulled a big cotton duvet from under the bed and thrown it over the bed, as it was a cool night, but when he went to pull the shutters of the window closed, he felt a thin hand on his own and sighed, turning to his slave.

"It's cold out there," he said simply.

The slave gave a pout.

"If it's not shut it will stay cold in here," Heero said.

The slave looked up to Heero with big, dark eyes, and the Prince snapped, drawing his hand from the open window and sliding underneath the silks.

The two were both cold, but Heero didn't worry about himself. Irea had a thing about temperature, and if he let his slave catch a cold, then there would be hell to pay. He slid slowly closer to the slave, who tensed slightly. Heero pulled his hand out from under the covers, placing it on his sorcorer's cheek, then moved his head closer to the boy until their foreheads were touching.

Duo Maxwell clenched his jaw and tried hard to show his displeasure through his eyes. Heero saw it, registered it, and ignored it. "You're going to let me close to you," he said. "Either you share my heat or you let me close the window so it isn't so cold."

The slave sighed, staring up at the window. The moon just barely peeked through. He weighed his options, came to a conclusion, and moved weakly closer to the Prince, who looked shocked.

"I really thought you would make me shut it," he said incredulously, staring at the window, then looking back to the tense slave, close to him but not quite touching. "You're an odd one," he said, pulling his pillow out from under his head and sliding it between them, arranging his slave's arms around it to cradle the silk thing like a small child. Then he pulled both pillow and boy into his chest, feeling the hands of the sorcorer fist in the silk cover of the pillow against his chest.

The slave took a deep breath and curled into the embrace, but Heero couldn't tell whether the boy was curling into his arms or around the pillow. He didn't really care. All he knew was that it felt good.

Then the slave was staring past him and out the window to the black sky above. Heero joined him, gazing at the stars until the moon had moved into view.

There was hair everywhere again, and Heero could feel it sliding against his chest as he breathed. When he looked away from the window and at his slave, he saw a head full of shimmering chestnut hair. Was that the moonlight, or was the hair shining naturally? Either way, it was pretty. It reminded Heero of his mother's hair.

Violet blue eyes slid open lazily, and Heero saw the moon reflected in their depths.

"Luna," he breathed.


	8. Welcome Home

MoonChild

Chapter Eight - Welcome Home

* * *

The newly dubbed slave, Luna, seemed not to care or understand the meaning behind the word. It was in the second tongue. The Kingdom currently used the third tongue, an evolution from the second. The first tongue was the tongue that Heero had been named in, for all royals were fluent in it. It allowed them private conversations whenever they pleased, and also provided a symbolic connection between them and the past.

The word Luna had been used in the second tongue in referance to the moon and its cycles. Heero thought it a meaningful word to call the boy by, but no matter how much he tried to convince the boy it was only a substitute until he knew the real one, the slave refused to respond to it.

It was only when Heero snapped and gave him the choice between 'Luna' and 'slave' that the boy allowed the name. He sullenly allowed Heero to explain why he had chosen it, but got less and less sullen as soon as Heero said it had connection to the moon. The boy then accepted it whole-heartedly, bright eyed and smiling.

Heero had a feeling he had just gone up in the slave's esteem.

'Luna' was then told to go back to sleep, as they would be docking that morning, and he would need his full strength. Luna did as he had been told, so Heero went to the decks to look out to the horizon and watch his city come closer.

Irea met him out on the decks, smiling wistfully. "I need to talk to you," she said, staring at the crystal blue waves.

Heero looked back to her. "I have called him Luna until I can find his real name," he said.

Irea glanced at him quizzically. "My, you _are_ distracted," she said, smirking.

Heero glared. "Distracted?"

Irea didn't let the smirk fall. "He's got your full attention, this _Luna_," she said, saying the name her first time. Heero nodded. Irea kept her derogatory smirk in place. "I said I wanted to talk, you assume it's about him," she said, allowing herself a laugh.

Heero raised an eyebrow and she continued. "It's about you. You've been on this boat for how long now? Your back still hasn't cricked," she said very seriousy, all smirk gone. "It normally happens within two weeks of the last episode. You've gone at least three."

Heero noddded. He had realized this, of course, but she was right. He had been too distracted to think about it.

"It's probably going to happen in the next few days. Steel yourself for it happening while your body adjusts to being on land again. It will be bad, too. You know what it's like when you go too long."

Heero grunted his admission. "Probably tonight," he said. "It feels like it."

Irea sighed. It was just like Heero, to analyze it without feeling much the same way as he would analyze when it would rain next. She knew what the episodes costed Heero, and she knew he never accepted them, never prepared for it emotionally, until after the fact.

"Prince," came an interruption from a sailor's gruff voice. Heero turned to see the first mate, grinning madly and bowing stiffly, obviously so used to being among his peers that he had almost forgotten how to bow. "Cabin boy found somethin' in the hull," he said cheerfully, as a small, mousy boy appeared at his shoulder. The first mate ruffled the kid's hair. "Found honey left from last trip. Still fresh. Loads of it. Cap'n wants the whole crew to have it with breakfast, homecoming celebration like. You're invited to Cap'n's table."

Heero nodded, and both boy and mate scampered off down a crew-hatch, the one Heero believed led to their kitchens. Heero turned to Irea. "Let's go," he said, but Irea called to him as he turned away.

"He said you," Irea said. "I wasn't invited."

Heero raised an eyebrow, then locked his eyes with his. She stood her ground. Irea was too polite to go anywhere without strict invitation. Heero didn't really care whether she came or not, but the fact was, he had said 'Let's go,' and she hadn't moved. Somewhere in his subconscious, so used to being obeyed, he took it as a challenge. He wracked his brain for some way of winning.

"If I recall correctly, you cured that very cabin boy's cough before we set off. If not for you, he would have been in no shape to find the honey and breakfast wouldn't even be happening," he said.

Irea furrowed her brow. "Well that is true," she said. "I guess the captain wouldn't take insult, after all I have been taking care of his crew. And I did replace the ship's surgeon because he was injured ... And I didn't ask for any coin for it. So he at least owes me breakfast, right?"

Heero nodded, turned away and started walking to the captain's quarters. When he heard Irea's footsteps behind him, he allowed himself a smirk. Hah. He won.

* * *

Heero had slipped Irea a sultry wink when she had spotted him slip the small tub of honey into his pocket. She had slipped him one back.

And now Heero found himself staring at the hangings around his bed, feeling jilted and rejected. He had wanted to see the look in those indigo eyes, but they were docking presently, and he did not want to rush something so special as honey. The slave needed to sleep now, for that precious while before he would be taken from the boat. The trip to the castle, all the noise and the yelling people, the horses, it would probably exhaust him. He needed to rest now, the honey would have to wait.

Heero heard the tell-tale roar of sailors ready to disembark, spend all of their money on whores and wine for a few measley days then be back to the sea. It was time to leave the Kyumakie. Heero allowed himself a content smile. It was about bloody time.

Reaching the decks saw a flood of noise disembowel Heero's ears, and he nearly winced. Not his favourite welcome.

Reaching the railing saw the sight of the Princess Relena, radiant in white today. He could see her serene, peaceful smile even from the boat.

Definately his favourite welcome.

Then there she was, holding out thin, bony arms, as though embracing him through the sea breeze between them. Heero raised his chin and stood tall. The people crowded behind the Princess roared.

Relena's arms wavered slightly, and that was when Heero saw it. Tsu, ever the shadow, standing behind her, his arms gently guiding hers down. He was very close to her. Close enough to be executed.

Heero entertained the thought of the axe for but a moment, instead drawn to why Tsu was close. Relena had gotten worse in his absence. Tsu was close enough to catch her should she fall.

The Prince's eyes flashed darkly for a moment. Relena was worse. Of course she was, having gone this while without Irea. Tsu could only do so much.

The boat was completely docked, ready for its load of humans to disembark. The captain was at Heero's side, one step behind, motioning for his leave. Heero stepped onto the floating platform of the dock, captain behind him. He had made arrangements for his slave to be transported off the ship after the sailors had disembarked, however he had to go before them. It was pack mentality of the people, after all. If their leader didn't go first, then why should he be the leader?

So Heero pressed on, walking determinedly down the wooden platform, the captain one step behind, to his left. First and second mate walked side by side a distance away. Irea followed with the few maidens she had brought to assist her. Then the ship's cook, then the sailors, then deckhands, then cabinboy. When they had all gone, leaving only the scarce few to guard the sorcorer slaves and keep the ship afloat, then Heero would personally reboard and take his slave back to the castle. The sorcorers in the hold would wait until the raucus had died down, then they would be escorted into the castle, where they would have their fates decided. To sell to the people, to sell to industries, or to put in service? Some had learning, and could be put into use in whichever fields.

The floating dock had melded into the beach, wooden supports creaking under Heero's heavy plate boots. He jumped down onto the pebbled sand beach, quickening his pace toward his sister.

She gave him a shaky curtsey when he was a few steps away, rising just in time to be engulfed in his arms. Tsu took a large backward step away from the two. He was not needed when Heero was there to catch Relena.

Then there was another uproar, cheering. Relena was well loved by the people, and the fact that Heero adored her made the people identify with him, and feel that he was one of them, not just some figurehead.

Relena raised her head from Heero's shoulder, soft white kohl over and under her eyes. She gave him another smile. "It's good to have you back, my Prince," she said, her voice soft and quiet.

Heero offered her a nod of agreement, then turned to her entourage, specifically noting the absence of one Trowa Barton.

"Lord Barton is bringing Haruka down for you separately at the moment," Relena offered. "She was skittish at the crowd."

Heero nodded, knowing his horse wouldn't have done well travelling down a noisy, crowded street without him atop her back.

"Heero," Relena whispered. Heero looked at her. In the small space that he had looked away, she had transformed from serenity's smiling face to exhausted and upset, distressed even. "You haven't said a word," she said, so low her brother barely heard it against the wind in his ears.

He stared into her face for a while, her sullen cheeks, her pale face, her very thin neck giving way to a face without a spoon of fat to spare. "I've missed you," he said lamely, but it came out as a choked whisper.

Relena took it as more than enough of a greeting, and she smiled once more.

* * *

Haruka, big and sturdy, her coat the colour of Heero's and his mother's hair, stood at the city, her master in sight. She pawed the ground, once, twice, before her captor, a tall man with an unsightly shock of hair, released her reins. She bolted through the sand and the Princess's handmaidens parted for her hastily, allowing her a straight path toward her master. She slowed to a walk and reached him, her head lowered contently.

However it was not the horse that the people's eyes followed. One Trowa Barton, tall and straight backed, dressed completely in black leathers, had the undivided attention of the people. Having just walked the full way with Haruka and his own horse, his hair was messier than usual, still falling over one eye, but the rest of it fell down his back, matted and dirty.

Trowa Barton had a very wide circle around him, as though there were an invisible barrier that the people couldn't cross. He was the picture of danger, the one that commanded lions, slipped from the centre of attention to the back of it in but a second, and was quick to pull a dagger.

Heero noted idly that Trowa still had his hair long. It was unkempt and gross, matted and thick. A shock of it fell down one side of his face, completely covering an eye.

Trowa Barton reached them presently, his one green eye piercing straight into Heero's. They exchanged a nod. Anyone else would have been whipped for not bowing.

Barton's horse, Armour, whinnied and broke the silence. Trowa lowered his head again, giving Heero one of the gazes he gave to an animal he hadn't seen since the day before.

Welcome home.

* * *

Heero, slave contentedly half asleep in his arms, stood on the deck of the Kyumakie, ready to leave the ship for the second time that day. His sister stared up at him with an expression of bemusement. Barton's hair had fallen over his remaining eye, but he seemed not to have noticed.

Haruka waited for him on the dock, servants holding her down in a kneeling position. She received her new burden without so much as a snort, then was released and stood. Heero mounted behind the slave quickly, steadying him to keep him from falling from the movement. He then pushed the slave's hooded head into his shoulder, settling the rest of his body over the Prince's own. His feet dangled limply to one side. They were quite the picture, the small boy in black silks curled into the Prince's chest, said Prince's arms around him, hands clasping the black leather reins of Haruka, who was always an edgy horse. She skittered across the wooden docks, hooves dancing and head held high.

They reached the Princess and her entourage. She had not mounted. In fact none of the people had moved so much as an inch in the space Heero had left to get his slave.

Trowa finally raised a hand and flicked the hair out of his eye, leaving one side still covered. He stared, one-eyed, at Heero, making no move to mount. His eye drifted from Heero's face, where it had been staring in puzzlement, to the bundle in his arms, then finally, to the bulging steel underneath flowing silk on the slave's arms.

He then promptly fell to his knees on the sand and laughed. Loudly. Without so much as a hand to his mouth to hide the sound, he roared with laughter, stopping only to intake sharp breaths. He stared up at the Princess, then to her sorcorer slave, who were still quite shocked, then back to Heero and down to his own sorcorer slave.

He doubled over, grasping his stomach, laughing hysterically. He seemed to use all his strength to look Heero straight in the eye and let out, "Oh, the _irony_..." before falling onto the sand and continuing to laugh like a madman.

Relena cocked her head to the side and chuckled. She at least had the decency to try to keep it in. She spared a glance to her slave, who had gotten over his shocked silence and was now visibly trying not to imitate Trowa.

Heero snorted, annoyed. "The irony is not lost on me," he snapped.

Relena, however, would not let it go. "You, brother dear, are never going to live this down," she said, walking to him and placing a hand on his knee. Tsu followed her with obvious difficulty, keeping his head down so that Heero would not see his expression. Relena smiled and leaned closer to Heero. "Svelte," she called, and Tsu went to her side. "Heero," Relena said quietly. "I believe you owe _someone_ an apology." She snuck a glance underneath the slave's hood, only able to see from the close proximity. She smirked at the sight.

Heero sneered. "I'm sorry, Relena," he said, pointedly not apologizing for his past behavior to Tsu. He then turned to the blonde slave, stared into his aqua green eyes, and spat out, "Fuck you." Haruka felt heels to her sides and she moved away, leaving them behind.

The cobbled streets had been scrubbed to shining. Stone walls had been washed down and sanded. Windows were flung open, the glass fresh and new, the wood shutters polished. The daughters of the home owners sat in their best dresses on the window sills, their faces painted and their fingernails shining from buffing.

And that was only on the street. The castle, when they arrived, promised to be even more of a sight.

The sorcorer in his arms took in everything from the market stalls to the poor in the alleys. Heero whispered to him to keep his head down, and rearranged his hood so that it covered more of his face.

The whole trip seemed surreal to Duo, curled in his master's arms. Not only was he seeing the capital for the first time, he was seeing it on a celebration day, where everyone and everything was at their finest. Not only was he riding a horse, he was riding it with a _Prince_. Not only was he at the front of the procession, he was the center of attention.

For people stopped and stared as Haruka climbed the street, pointing and gasping at him. There came a hush whenever he was in view. After a while, it just got too much, too strange, for the boy that had spent so long in a small underground cell, and he turned his head into Heero's shoulder, shutting his eyes tight as though it could block out the feeling of eyes on him.

As though he had been expecting it, the Prince's hand darted from the reins to his hood, where it lay softly. Duo honestly couldn't figure out whether it was meant to be a reassuring hold or simply a prevention from moving from his shoulder.

Neither could Heero.

* * *

The castle shone in all its glory before them. Haruka pawed ground when she reached gates of black steel. Heero lowered his head to speak in the ear of the slave. "Look up," he whispered, removing his hand from the boy's head, his eyes focused on his slave's.

He saw sheer amazement as the sorcorer looked up to the gates, then through them, travelling through the old, mossy arches to reach thick oak wood doors, flung wide to recieve them. Inside the carpet started, a thick purple colour, illuminated by wide open windows and chandeliers hanging from every beam in the roof. Above the oak doors stood the body of the castle, looming above them in a way that reminded the slave of how a lion would loom over a lamb. Balconies leapt over every window, and the shadows they cast made the castle look black and eerie. Where the sun hit, however, the stone shone a silvery grey, bright and welcoming.

It went through Heero's mind that the slave had likely never seen a construction so huge.

Heero guided the slave's gloved hands to the pommel of the saddle and steadied him. "Hold on," he muttered, then dismounted.

He put an arm underneath the slave's legs, then slowly slid him down from Haruka's back and into his own embrace. The horse gave a welcome snort and started moving to the stables before the hands even had a grasp of her reins.

Heero shifted the slave in his grip then walked through the arches. Relena and Trowa had caught up and followed a few steps behind him, Trowa still sniggering every few steps.

Heero didn't spare them a backward glance, stalking through the reception in the Hall, straight up the stairs. He didn't give the slave a chance to look around, and then he was at the top, preparing for another flight. He'd deal with the people in the Hall when he had delivered his burden.

Reaching the hallway he sought, the Royals Hall, he paused for breath. The slave peeked around, taking in the bright, stainless carpet, the silk drape covered walls, the gold candlesticks. Heero stared at his father's door, wondering what the old man would say, but gave no more thought to it, instead stalking down the corridor to his own door. Two guards stood by it, unmoving, staring at him with the same expression that had greeted the slave on the faces of Relena, Barton and Tsu.

Heero glared at one, and he jumped, reaching to the doorhandle, unlocking and opening the door for him quickly.

Heero stalked through and kicked the door shut after him, ignoring his common room and heading straight to the bed room. The slave had been staring around the room in awe, looking at the polished desk and cabinets, the soft fur covered lounge, but his hand darted out to the door when Heero reached it, turning the handle.

Heero pushed it open with his knee, noting contentedly that the furs on his bed had been straightened. The hangings were open, as was the window leading to the balcony, and Heero snarled at that. It was well known to him that the wall to his balcony was quite scaleable, he had done it when he was twelve, and Trowa did it on almost a monthly basis. The least that could be done to prevent intruders was a closed door.

Heero carefully pressed the boy onto the bed, then awkwardy pulled the covers down from underneath his body and pulled them back up over the top of him. Said boy was still staring around the room in obvious awe, and Heero would have left him that way, had there not been a more pressing, urgent matter in his pocket.

Heero considered leaving the honey jar until the boy had slept off the exhaustion, but then denied it, taking a place beside the boy, marvelling at the way his loose hair was falling out from under his hood.

He slipped the jar from his pocket and turned to the slave, placing two fingers on his jaw and turning his head to his own. He lifted the jar. "Do you know what this is?" he asked.

Duo stared at it, slowly, very slowly, plucking his attention from all the things around him and placing it on the small jar. It was no secret to the boy who had spent his life pre-prison escaping from sexual encounters on the streets what masters typically kept for their slaves in small jars. This master, however, didn't seem to have any sinister motive in his voice for showing him the jar. Duo had thought that he'd still been safe, because of his health, untouchable even, and he hoped that he was wrong about whatever that substance in that jar was.

His sincere hope was crushed as the Prince pulled a cutting knife from inside his shirt. Duo attempted to shy away.

The Prince glanced at him, but made no attempt to come after. Duo stared at the knife, noted thankfully that it was dull from cutting meat at the table, then wondered just what the Prince was into that required a knife. He had heard on the streets all sorts of stories about what men could find arousing. He sure hoped this Royal wasn't about to get off on spilling his blood.

The jar was open, then the knife was inside it, scooping out some of the contents. Vaguely, Duo wondered just why the knife was near that stuff, then his mind came up with a truly horrifying thought regarding applying it with the knife.

Duo would have thrashed his way to the other side of the bed, then off it and out the balcony if he had the chance, but the Prince was holding him with one strong hand, then the knife was at his mouth. Duo had but a moment to wonder what in Hell's name was going on before something _incredible_ hit his tongue.

"It's a reward," the Prince whispered thickly, watching his slave roll the honey about in his mouth. "For being good on the way here."

For Heero, honey was an everyday occurence. For a street rat who had the best meals of his life in prison, honey was almost orgasm worthy.

"I'm guessing you've never tasted honey before, Luna," Heero said, testing his boundaries by using the name.

The slave ignored it, eyes wide and blank as he focused completely on the substance in his mouth. He slowly shook his head from side to side, suddenly realizing that being a slave sure did have its perks.

First those sheets, now this bedding, which was fur, he knew, but he didn't know what kind of fur. He'd never slept on fur this soft. The furs in the church had been scratchy, but at the time he'd thought them comfortable compared to the cobbled stone street he usually slept on. Now he was really getting a new perspective on what comfortable really was.

Comfortable was when he was warm, in the moonlight, with a full belly surrounded by whatever that bed in the ship had been clothed in. Comfortable was the fabric of what he was wearing now. Comfortable was honey on his tongue.

Heero presented more honey on his dull cutlery knife to the slave, and he took the lot of it, sucking the knife clean.

Heero was very, very tempted to take him then and there. Logic won out in the end, as it always did, and Heero refrained from the many things he wanted to do.

"I have to go," Heero muttered sadly, scraping the last scraps of honey from the jar and giving it to the slave, who ignored his words, far more interested in the honey. "If you're good you'll get some more with breakfast tomorrow."

That got a reaction. Luna's eyes lit up and raised to his own, big and blue and with flecks of violet. Heero smirked. "We'll see," he said. "Irea might even let you have some bread."

Heero had expected the slave's eyes to light up further at the prospect of something chewable, even maybe a smile, but he was sorely disappointed. Luna seemed not to have even heard his comment, instead frozen stiffly and staring at the wall.

His thin brown eyebrows furrowed and he gained a very sour expression. Heero glanced at the wall his eyes were locked on. It was the same grey stone of the rest of the castle, and there was nothing at all odd about it.

Another look at the slave's eyes showed that they were slightly unfocused, as though he were staring at a point beyond the wall and yet also in front of it. Suddenly they darted to Heero's windows, staring at them in dislike and intense concentration, as though there was something wrong with them and the wall.

As though they were in the wrong place.


	9. Repairing The Broken

Hikishi - I mostly just want my reviews to correlate. A review from here about chapter 8 then a review from there about chapter 18 confuses my already frazzled brain. Also the story's starting to get cool over there, and it feels like , the bigger audience, is missing out on all the fun stuff. For example, the 3+4.

MoonChild

Chapter Nine - Repairing The Broken

* * *

Jarekshi had made a rare trip from his rooms to the welcoming ceremony. Idly, he watched his hands twitch, sending shudders down his fingers. He felt removed from the limb as it spasmed and fell suddenly very still.

He watched it raise and signal a servant to him, as though he had not been the one commanding it to do so. A pretty girl, maybe fifteen years old, was curtseying in front of him, sending him a sultry, seductive glance. Then suddenly his voice was commanding her to get his snuffbox.

She left, swaying her hips, and then everything was a blur. He recalled his son kneeling in front of him, inquiring about his health, but nothing more until suddenly that girl's pretty hands were in front of his nose, holding his precious box filled with crushed deathweed. He smiled at her, inhaling the pleasing scent deeply, pleased with her kneeling position, her skinny, seductive arms held up to hold the box to him.

The one part of his body he could still feel as though it truly belonged to him flared to life. Oh yes. He would have that girl tonight.

It escaped his notice that his son's Healer, the one he loathed, the one that used odd methods, the one with the sorcorer for a brother, was staring at him sadly. Irea Winner had watched him fade away to his illness and his obsession, knowing that she could help the illness better than the Healers he insisted on using. She knew he had not long left. She knew she could give him at least another year or two, but that she was powerless to enforce it. Jarekshi would use traditional healing until the day he died.

Heero Yuy also watched him, similar thoughts racing through his head. He knew the crown was as good as his, he had known it for almost a year now. The question was simply what he was going to do with it when it was on his head.

Trowa Barton, however, watched the current King with completely different thoughts. His thoughts regarded the fact that if Jarekshi had been one of his animals, he would have put him out of his misery by now. He also thought about perhaps doing so, although he hadn't been asked to by his Prince. He knew it would be in everyone's best interests if Jarekshi would just drop dead, and he was going to do so soon anyway, so Prince Heero wouldn't be annoyed if Trowa sped up the process. Would he? Being an orphan, Trowa had never really understood the whole familial thing. He guessed he would have to wait it out. He guessed he would get very bored during this waiting period.

He guessed he would need to pull some mischief to keep him occupied.

Of all the people in Karen Miya, Trowa Barton was the one that most needed a hobby. Preferably one that didn't involve knives and blood.

He got it that night.

* * *

Heero returned to his rooms gratefully. He hated parties, and the fact that his back ached like it was being prodded with a blacksmith's hot poker didn't help. His slave was asleep so he gladly fell in beside him, but only after he retrieved the black pillow which he had ordered brought from the ship. He placed it between them and fell asleep with his face buried in the silk. He slept deeply, exhausted, tired and in pain, so when he woke up in the middle of the night, he was very, very annoyed.

It only got worse when he realised that Luna was not beside him, or even in the bed for that matter. He bolted upright, fearful that he had somehow slept through something serious.

He had in fact slept through something very serious indeed. He had slept through the valiant efforts of Duo Maxwell attempting to free himself of the bedclothes. He had slept through Duo Maxwell half crawling, half falling onto the stone floor. He had slept obliviously as Duo Maxwell lay where he fell, panting and dizzy, cold and shivering. He had slept through Duo Maxwell courageously pulling himself across the stones, making slow progress to the window. He had slept through Duo Maxwell falling to the floor, completely unconscious, with one hand outstretched, reaching to the windows, his fingers falling limply to just touch the line of moonlight that fell through the windows.

Heero Yuy had slept through something serious indeed. Shocked, he pulled the frozen, completely unconscious boy into his arms and back into bed, though he had not an idea that that was the worst thing he could have done at the time. He didn't see his slave's hand limply reaching back in the direction of the moonlight.

* * *

Trowa Barton went to sleep when the moon was at its highest. He also woke when it was at its highest. He wondered at that, for he normally slept the night through unless there was something wrong. Try as he might, he couldn't find anything out of place. He checked out his window and saw nothing at all wrong on the Prince's balcony. He strained his ears for a single sound, but everyone, even the kitchen staff, had gone to bed.

So Trowa went back to sleep. It was only as his head hit his pillow that he realized something was very wrong.

He bolted upright, his hands at the back of his neck. Where was his hair? Somebody had somehow snuck in and cut his hair. How in the hell? He normally woke up whenever someone walked by the hall, let alone for them to get in and cut his hair ...

His mind fell blank for a few moments after he realized that something else was wrong.

He was butt naked.

And he was absolutely positive he'd fallen into bed with pants on.

There was no possible way that someone could have come into his room, cut his hair and taken off his pants. It was simply not possible.

"You're dreaming," came a soft, quiet, smooth voice. He didn't know the owner of it and he darted around, seeing someone that hadn't been there before.

Soft blonde hair fell in locks over the boy's eyes. He was sitting curled up at the foot of Trowa's bed, also nude and underneath Trowa's fur blankets. He had a small face with big, peaceful blue eyes, serene smile and pure white skin.

If Trowa had known what Quatre Winner looked like, he would have been at his blades in a moment, in a fighter's crouch and ready to defend against powerful magical attacks.

As it were, Trowa had no idea who was sitting on his bed, smiling at him peacefully and starting to talk. "You're dreaming," he repeated. "And as dreams do, you're wearing only what you feel is a part of your body. You're also in the place you call home."

Trowa stared at the boy, unsure of what was happening, but suddenly calmed by a peaceful smile. The boy was suddenly crawling over to him, smile turning lusty. "Don't worry," he whispered in his ear. "This is a good dream. A very good dream."

He was right. It was.

* * *

The first thought to cross Heero's mind as he woke for the second time that night was something along the lines of 'Here we go again'.

The second was 'Fuck that hurts'.

The third was 'When did I call out for Irea?' as he felt her hands on him, helping guards roll him over onto his stomach, this time hearing the grunt escape his body at the pain from movement.

Then there was a putrid smell beneath his nose and he would have tried to move his head away from it had he not innately known that such a movement would hurt beyond all reasoning. The deathweed solution slowly seeped through his nostrils and into his lungs, filling his body with a lethargic relaxed sort of ache. Slowly, as the edge creeped away from his pain, his lower back muscles were forced to relax. He felt female hands digging through his limp body to find his spine, felt them poke and prod very very painfully at bones that were far too weak to handle it, felt something sharp scrape agonisingly across what he presumed was a muscle inside his body, then finally felt a very painful, relief-filled pop as the bones shifted back to where they were meant to be, the arrowhead stiffly held between them.

He heard peaceful quietness for what seemed like not nearly enough time, then he was being rolled onto his side again. He tried to open his eyes, for some reason he felt there was something he desperately needed to check upon, but then those hands that had been wreaking such agony on his back were at his eyes, shutting them closed. Irea's voice was in his ear, he knew it was her voice, but what the words were he couldn't fathom. The smell was in his nostrils still.

Vaguely, he realised that he was drifting off to sleep, despite the agony. And yet somehow there was something keeping him awake. He needed something. He needed to know where that something was. He needed to know what the something was.

Fitfully, he brought himself slowly out of sleep, despite the cooing noises he heard in Irea's voice, the noises he associated with it being time to sleep. He wrenched his eyes open, his lips uncooperative as he forced them apart, his throat rusty as he pulled a word from it.

"Luna."

Suddenly he felt a human body pressed against his shoulders and a head full of hair resting on the back of his neck. Irea was saying something and there was a nagging worry at why Luna wasn't moving before the black claimed him.

* * *

When Heero woke he was at the edge of his bed and Irea was at his bedside, her hands on his. He felt Luna curled up behind him, carefully positioned so that he wasn't touching his wound. He heard Irea call his name. Then he heard _Luna_ call his name.

He twitched and almost rolled over before instinct told him that rolling over might not be the best thing given last night's events. Then his senses returned, telling him that hallucinations were perfectly normal given the deathweed he had inhaled the previous night.

Besides, the voice had been female, and Luna was far from that.

Then Irea was speaking again and he looked at her, seeing her third eye placed above her right one today. It was a lovely orange, the color of the sunset. He grinned at her, his lips protesting because he didn't often smile so wide.

"I'm intoxicated," he said, fumbling with the word, laughing as he realized that Irea was having trouble understanding what he had said.

Finally, she smiled apologetically. "It's my fault," she said slowly. "I expected it to be a lot worse than it was."

Heero nodded, then stopped as it produced the feeling that his brain was rattling inside his skull. He got like this every now and then, when he had a little too much deathweed. Irea basically had to guess how much pain he would be in, which was hard because he displayed small pain in the same way as large pain. If she overestimated, then he would get more deathweed than needed to dull the pain, and the excess would do the only other job it knew how ...

Heero smiled at the yellow tongues flying around his rafters.

"You'll get another one soon," Irea said. "That one was just a little crick. Movement is still happening in there."

Heero valiantly tried to understand her words, then gave up and watched one of the yellow tongues turn purple and devour another.

"Heero," Irea called. He dragged his eyes away and looked at her. Her third eye had turned blue.

"Luna didn't wake at all when it happened. He stirred a little when Trowa pushed him close to you, but the whole time you were grunting and yelling he didn't wake up."

Heero pulled his eyes away from her and watched his tongues flying happily away in the direction of his window. He didn't mind them, really. He was just glad they hadn't started line dancing.

"Heero?" Irea pressed. "Luna's unwell."

Excellent. Small sentances with small words he could understand given his current predicament. His joy was short lived when he realised that his slave was unwell. Using alot of force, he pulled himself as far out of his drug induced hallucinations as he could, forcing himself to ignore the stone in the wall that was pulling faces at him.

What had she said before? About Luna not waking up? "He could just ... be exhausted," Heero said, exhausted himself.

Irea gave his hand a squeeze and he jerked involuntarily, feeling her tentacles. "I hope so," she said.

Heero closed his eyes and found the stone in the wall imprinted on his eyelids. "How long is this going to last?" he asked, weary of it all.

"I have no idea," Irea replied honestly. "Just stay in bed today. Best not to go to court and ask how the servant's tentacle hands are coming along."

Heero laughed, hearing it turn sour at the end. Irea had been doing this with him for so long now that she even knew what his favorite hallucinations were. Well, not favorite, just more common.

* * *

Heero decided to combat the hair problem that night, despite the protests of both his back and Irea. He himself had slept fitfully most of the day, and the few times he did wake he tried to wake his slave to no avail. The boy didn't even roll over.

So the Crown Prince decided that it was best to take care of the matted, knotted problem now while the boy was deeply asleep, so he wouldn't have to suffer through the necessary touching of his hair. He decided to take the boy outside, to the lounge on his balcony, where the moonlight would illuminate the hair for Heero to work through, and the hair that would undoubtedly fall out wouldn't stick around in his carpets.

The boy stirred as Heero placed him on the soft plush seat and took his length of hair in his hands and folded it over the back of the lounge. He woke only when Heero placed a seat for himself behind the boy, grunting a little as a bone ground against another, and seemed confused and dazed when Heero tucked blankets around him.

Heero very much enjoyed the prospect of touching the boy's hair, however there was something else in his mind, making him watch the slowly waking boy with dread. He seated himself behind the lounge, careful not to touch his slave's hair just yet.

"Why did you do it?" He asked softly, trailing one hand down to stroke the boy's face. The boy was fully awake now, and his eyes spoke that he was aware of what 'it' was. They dropped to the floor. "You know I didn't want you to do it."

Again those eyes spoke of awareness, but this time it was different. This time the owner was aware that the master hadn't wanted him to do what he did, but had done it anyway, and Heero needed to know why.

"Why did you do it?" he asked again, watching fascinated, as the slave licked his lips slowly, wearily, but still in a motion as though about to speak. He opened his mouth and nothing happened, then his face fell in realization all over again that sound was impossible.

Heero stroked his face continually, taking deep breaths. He wasn't angry, which was a good sign, meaning that he would be able to control his punishment. He needed to be very careful about this, as he had never dealt with an ill slave before. He was unused to the prospect of punishment being too harsh, he himself had never had mild punishments, and those he had been in charge of disciplining had normally had the sense to avoid punishment and earn rewards instead.

This one however had earned himself a reward in the honey, and then gone straight on to misbehave. Typically, given the infringement, had a slave tried to run from him, he probably would have given them a hard slap on the face. Worse than a slap on the wrist, better than a beating, and left a nice mark to humiliate them for a day after.

Given the slave's predicament, Heero worried that such a hit would actually hurt him worse than he intended. There was also little fat under his skin to soften the blow. Worse still was if it terrified the slave and made him fearful and stressed, which could damage his health even more than the hit itself.

So it needed to be light but not so light that it was ignored. But too hard would be very bad.

Heero turned his slave's face a little with two fingers holding his chin, and straightened the fingers on his other hand, bringing it up and stopping just a few inches from the boy's skin. He didn't give him time to look at it before bringing it down, lightly in his opinion, to smack the boy's cheek near his chin.

Heero then immediately cradled the boy's cheeks in his hands, worried but satisfied that he had given an appropriately hard blow.

Luna looked up at him, not shocked but not pleased either, before weakly raising one of his own hands to sneak under Heero's and rub the spot, then sigh sadly. He wasn't untouchable anymore.

Heero watched him for a few moments until satisfied the boy wasn't upset or fearful. He just seemed too tired, but it wasn't time to sleep yet.

"I need to brush your hair," Heero said.

Wide, protesting eyes met his, and then the boy's hands were at the edge of his seat, as though ready to push himself off it in a futile attempt to run.

"Don't," Heero started, but paused as the boy stared at him again, and tried to correct his tone. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you," he said quietly. "But it needs to be done, or else more will fall out. It needs to be brushed. I should wash it again as well, really, but if I brush it now that can wait a few days."

Luna tried to raise himself up into more of a protesting position, but Heero held his ground, pushing him lightly back to where he had been. "If it's not brushed, it will get more matted, then it will be impossible to brush at all and it will have to be cut."

Luna's eyes went wide and fearful, then the fear was forcefully banished, and replaced with anger as he shook his head as wildly as he could, which wasn't very wildly at all but still made him very dizzy. He raised his eyes to glare at the Prince, who huffed indignantly.

"That wasn't a threat," he said, annoyed. "It's just a fact. Your hair is so unhealthy it's falling out and getting tangled with the rest of it. It's so long that one knot can go for several inches. If it's not brushed the whole thing will become one big long knot and you won't be able to keep it. You'll get lice and fleas and no one will be able to do anything about it because they'll nest in the middle of the knot where no one can reach."

Luna fell back into the lounge, almost quaking as he allowed himself to realize that Heero was right. But still he shook his head and pulled away weakly, then shied back and took a sharp, shallow gasp of air, fearful, when Heero's expression turned angry.

"I've explained the situation to you. I haven't forced anything on you, I've been kind and reasonable. You have no right to shy from me now. I've been nothing but good to you, and still you left my bed last night," Heero spat. "Now you have the gall to run from me? In front of my very eyes?"

Heero creased his brow, angrily and violently grabbing at the collar of the black silk shirt Luna still wore. "This is how things are going to happen," he said, lowly, quietly, harshly. "I am going to brush your hair. You are going to sit still and let me. You will not _insult_ me ever again by pulling away from me. I've done nothing to merit your fear of me, and if you insist on treating me like a villain then I will become one."

The Crown Prince pulled roughly on the silk material worn by his lowly bedslave, yanking him back to his previous position on the lounge. Holding him still there by the collar, Heero then grabbed at his hair and positioned it again over the back of the seat, even as the slave quaked under him, not crying but definately almost doing so.

Heero lowered his head to face level with his slave and raised his hand from his collar to his chin, then continued raising it, pointing the slave's face to his own.

Luna had his eyes shut tight, moisture underneath them from tears held inside, his brow clenched and his lower lip held tight between his teeth.

"Look at me," Heero said lowly.

Luna shook, biting his lip.

"Look at me!"

Luna shuddered, his eyes slammed together still, and Heero watched as the escaped moisture beneath his eyes swelled and formed a single droplet.

_No. Oh no you don't._ Not after all that Heero had done for him, Luna couldn't possibly shed a tear. Not because of Heero.

Then something else caught his eye. Another drop, somewhere else.

Heero's thumb on Luna's chin wiped across the skin, coming away tinged red. Heero listened as Luna breathed unevenly, scared and fitful, now starting to hiccup, but still with his teeth clamped down on his bottom lip.

Heero tipped his head forward, plucking the injured lip from Luna's teeth with his own, tenderly rolling it between his top and bottom lips, sucking it clean of blood.

"Don't do that," he said, his lips still touching Luna's. "Do I really deserve that?"

Luna shook, hiccups banished from the shock, his eyes slowly relaxing from their squeezed shut position. He took several shaky, quick breaths, then slowly opened his eyes to Heero, sniffing to clear his nose, partly from his attempt at not crying, and partly because he was ill and his nose was blocked.

Luna didn't look Heero in the eye, staring downwards at his mouth with the expression of someone about to be eaten by a whale. Solo had once told him about kisses. About how the man would force your mouth open with his and shove his tongue down your throat. About how he would run his tongue over your teeth and you would want to bite down, hurt him, but you shouldn't, not yet. You need to wait untill you are in a position where you can hurt him badly, biting his tongue won't stop him from running after you. But if you can get him to put you on your knees facing him, always facing him, facing away is a bad sign, if you could get him to do that then he will pull down his trousers and you can bite him somewhere far more sensitive than his tongue and he'll have trouble following you. Duo had been unsure and disgusted, flatly saying that he would never, ever touch someone there with his mouth, even if it was to injure them so he could run. Solo had told him then all about what would happen. If he was cornered, then he could either take them in his mouth or somewhere much, much worse. He had never been cornered, not yet. Not until Heero.

Luna struggled to breathe through his open mouth as these thoughts flew through his mind and he stared at Heero's lips, waiting stock-still for the kiss to continue. Just waiting for Heero to smother his only functioning airway with his own, force a too-big tongue into his mouth, then start more.

Heero's lips stayed still, his hands moving to cradle Luna's face, thumbs stroking the wetness away from underneath his eyes. He moved in, pressing his closed lips to Luna's slightly open ones.

Luna stopped breathing, blinking madly, staring at Heero's peacefully closed eyelids. He felt his throat work, releasing a whimper Heero would never hear and for the first time he was glad he couldn't make a sound.

Then Heero was retreating, hands stroking his face, and Duo gasped for air, shocked that it had ended so quickly, and been so ... tender ...

"You'll let me do your hair now, correct?" Heero whispered, dodging his head so his eyes fell into the direction Luna stared. Surprised, Luna finally looked at him, staring blankly and fearfully. Then he hiccuped and looked away miserably.

Heero gave a weak smile, caressing Luna's cheek in a downward motion, going down to his neck and shoulder. "If you could speak, you would be beheading me with words, wouldn't you?"

Luna gave a weak half laugh, which looked more like a crying shudder. He nodded sadly.

Heero smiled again, looking fondly at Luna's depressed expression. "I like how you can't speak. Noise is one of my biggest hates," he said, watching as Luna made no move, then he continued. "It's like your last line of defence has been broken, leaving you weak and vulnerable, _broken_ before me."

Heero tilted his slave's head back to him. "When I first met my best friend, Trowa Barton, he was thinner than you. His eye had been scooped out with a spoon, and both eye and spoon were lying beside him. He lay there, blind in one eye and eyeless in the other, with his memory completely erased, and I watched as he regained sight in his only eye and got better. He still can't remember before that day, but he's now the strongest fighter in the kingdom."

Heero looked his slave in the eye, darting his focus from his left eye to his right as he tried to find a way to say his thoughts. He decided just to blurt it so that it was out of his head and into the air.

"I like to repair broken things."

Luna looked him in the eye and seemed to understand, if only a little, and lowered his head again. Then suddenly his head raised, his eyes met the Prince's with defiance, and his lips moved, saying something clearly and harshly, annoyed, angry, insulted and completely silent.

Much as he would have liked to at the time, Heero couldn't read lips. He had no idea that his slave had just proclaimed that he was not a 'thing' to be 'repaired'. All he knew was that the boy had huffed, slumped back on the lounge and then sighed, looking up and shaking his head ruefully.

Heero took it as a sign that whatever he had done wrong had been a minor infringement and had been forgiven already. He got up and sat behind the lounge, scooping Luna's hair and straightening it out behind the lounge before attacking it with the brush he had left on his chair.

Luna squirmed and Luna shifted, he sighed and he huffed, but he didn't gather up the gall to push himself off the seat. Heero didn't hurt him, he was an old hand at this, what with Relena's hatred of being touched by those that weren't family. Luna's hair was longer and knottier than Relena's ever got, but that just meant it would take longer.

Heero grabbed his hair in a handful and held it up tightly, so that it was loose and pulled not at the boy's head. He then brushed from the ends up, and made sure that when he snagged on a knot, the hair pulled at his hand and didn't reach Luna's scalp, effectively eliminating the pain of brushing. But the more he untangled the more distraught Luna became, the higher he brushed the more the boy cringed.

He started sobbing tearlessly halfway through. It took him a while, a very long while, but Heero finally managed to blot it from his mind. He didn't normally care about that sort of thing anyway.

So he brushed, mechanically, methodically, stopping every now and then to rip the hair from the brush. He noted, pleased, that not nearly as much fell out as the first time, and that less and less was falling out as he kept brushing. The hair was also much better looking than the time before.

Heero creased his brow, looking at the crown of Luna's head, searching for a spot. The last time he had brushed the hair there had been a small spot, the size of an inkstamp, where the hair had completely fallen out. Try as he might, he couldn't find it this time.

It almost reminded him of the incident about the black marks on his teeth.

Things got even odder as time went on. Luna eventually tired himself out with his stress and fell asleep. A short while after, Heero started to notice the hair reflecting the moonlight more.

It stopped being dull and started being shiny. Quite odd.

Then as he brushed it over again, getting the last straggling knots out, he noticed it seemed thicker. He remembered, vividly as it was barely a few hours ago, that the ends of it had been thin, split and uneven. Now they were thick, full and even.

Heero passed it off as due to the really good brush.

But he still felt slightly unsettled by the eerie, beautiful way the moonlight bounded almost ... _happily_ off the silken strands. Silken. Another thing they hadn't been before.

This was getting too strange for the Crown Prince to handle.

Luna awoke again as Heero put him back to bed, this time staring at him with tired, low eyes. Heero gave him a world-weary smile.

"I know this is hard for you," he said, watching the slave close his eyes. "But you'll like it here. No one will hurt you if you follow the rules. You'll adjust in time. And you've got all the time in the world."

Luna opened his eyes, staring at the balcony to to night sky beyond. Did he really?


	10. Taking Off The Warm Scarf

MoonChild

Chapter Ten - Taking Off The Warm Scarf

* * *

Luna proved to them all that he did _not_ have all the time in the world. The next morning Heero woke to the sound of shallow, struggling breaths and the sight of pale, sickly skin.

Luna could barely be woken for breakfast and he passed out before he was done. He could not be roused at lunchtime.

When told of the previous nights events, Irea was furious. "I told you not to punish him!" she spat. "And furthermore, what were _you_ doing up? And on the balcony no less!"

To add to Heero's growing list of concerns, Trowa was acting odd. He was jumpy and twitchy, the way he acted when a mare was about to give birth.

No foals were due. Trowa's itchiness was unfounded.

Trowa's actions were put on the backburner when Heero went to see his father that afternoon. He had been politely refused entry by the Royal Doorguard, who claimed that his father was too ill for a visit.

Gossip spread around the castle, and probably through the entire city before it finally reached Heero's ears. King Jarekshi had collapsed while half way through pounding one of the servant girls. The girl would be talk of the town for all of today and tomorrow, but next month she would be famous no more and no man would be there to wed her and keep her fed. Nobody wanted some cheap whore.

She personally recited her story of the event to Heero, complete with sultry glances and her ridiculously low neckline. As it turned out, Jarekshi was just too frail to fornicate.

Heero didn't think he would live much longer, now that one of his favorite pasttimes had been eradicated.

Heero dealt with hushing up the matter as best he could, trying to save his father's dignity by claiming there had been something in the wine. He spun the facts of the story, saying to his court that it was a testament to his father's strength that he had been able to get back to his rooms before the poison took effect, let alone start to go at it like a rabbit.

When he returned to his rooms, he shut his door to the sound of the Royal Doorguard chatting amiably about how strong and not of this earth their King was, and how his son was going to be the same. Letting out a contented, 'job well done' sigh, he crossed the floor of his common room and opened the door to his bedroom and Luna.

He sat by the bed for a while, staring at his charge, snug in his bed, then started writing to WuFei, a prompt, quick message about the slave and asking for his timely return to the castle. When done, Heero gently nudged him with his knuckles, rocking his body slowly until he started to wake.

Luna creaked one eye open, the other following unsteadily. He stared up at Heero, a distinct weak and depressed expression marring his face.

Heero fed him as quickly as the boy could get it down, fearful that he would fall from consciousness again. As though on queue, as soon as the bottle was downed Luna's head fell forward onto Heero's waiting shoulder.

Heero put him to bed and followed, careful to stay on the other side of the bed so as not to scare him should he wake.

Due to declining health, Luna was once again untouchable.

_

* * *

_

Chang WuFei, Sorcorer Hunter,

_I request your immediate presence regarding a sorcorer I recently acquired. Please make your way to Karen to speak with me and assess the mentioned sorcorer. It would be appreciated if you would scan your records for arrests between the years Kovert Nine and Bavier Two for a child, male, long brown hair, blue eyes, name unknown. He is currently mute. I will be expecting you to assess his power in magic and whether he is trustworthy. I would like to know as much information as possible regarding his arrest and capture, and for a meeting to be arranged with the hunter that captured him. Please send any information that comes to mind immediately via this bird. _

_Crown Prince Heero Yuy_

He flicked it between his fingers, slanted eyes staring at it, ink black as the night sky, black as his eyes, black as the lashes adorning those eyes, black as the few strands escaping their tight bond to trail down his cheeks.

His woman came to him then, wearing a smile as she leant over him to stare at the parchment he held between thin fingers. She smiled and breathed into his ear. He folded the parchment and stood, her fingers intertwined between his.

Their runed rings touched and chimed. She smiled and looked into his eyes, locking them together, four black orbs intertwined.

"Kovert Nine and Bavier Two," he said quietly, watching her pupils flick from his eyes to his lips. "Bavier One," he whispered. "Summer. Third moon cycle. I apprehended a boy, maybe nine years old. Long brown hair, blue eyes. Had a face fit for a King's shadow."

The woman took a deep breath. "Perhaps," she began.

"Perhaps," Chang WuFei agreed. "I hope it is not that boy he has acquired. Any other. But if he has acquired that child, then he is in a very precarious perch atop the Gates of Hell, and if he falls, he will not fall onto the soft grass on the other side."

MeiRan trailed her fingertips down WuFei's white shirt, tracing the warded stitches. "He never hurt anybody," she said, and it was truthfully. The boy WuFei was thinking of hadn't hurt anyone. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Chang watched her turn away, then stuffed his hand into his coat, curling his fingers around his warded blades. His sword he picked up with his other hand and cradled to his chest, closing his eyes and preparing for a hefty battle.

He just hoped Yuy would listen when he told him to get rid of him.

He just hoped the guards at Yarani would survive his next visit, whereupon he would personally remind them just how much he had stressed all those years ago that the boy he had ordered placed under the same strict guard as Quatre Winner was _never_ to be let out of Yarani.

He sincerely hoped it was another boy. Anyone but that child. Anyone. He didn't care if the kid was a mindless killer, so long as it was not the boy that he remembered.

* * *

Duo sighed sadly. He had slept the whole day, completely exhausted, but he couldn't sleep this night for some sadistic reason. The Prince lay next to him, and had somehow managed to curl up with him in his sleep. Duo lay curled into the Royal's chest, uncomfortable with the proximity but somehow surprisingly comfortable. He had no idea how that was possible, so he put it down to the furs.

He was exhausted, and he needed to get onto that balcony again. He didn't really _want_ to, because he knew that Yuy would wake up, haul him back to bed and give him a red cheek for his trouble. But he had to. It was a matter of life and death now.

His breathing sounded strange and foreign to him as he shifted, trying to figure out a way to pass Yuy without waking him up, but it was because it was so shallow and quiet that he was able to hear what he heard.

He looked over Heero's side, staring down the bed to the balcony doors, which were flung open. Between them stood a figure, tall and lean, and Duo stared at it, shocked, until realisation dawned.

Royalty. Assassin.

The assassin was moving, creeping slowly to the bed. Heero was shifting in his sleep. Frantic, Duo pressed at his arm, which he had just shoved under the pillows. Duo tried to wake Heero, knowing he couldn't defend himself, but Heero didn't show any sign of waking and the intruder was now by the bed.

All of a sudden everything was moving. Heero's arm flung out from under the pillows, bringing a knife with it, and he tackled the intruder with his body. Their was a scuffle and a gasp for air as Duo struggled to bring himself to a sit, relieved that Heero was indeed awake and able to fight for him, because Duo just didn't feel like doing it himself.

There was a loud thump as Heero pinned the thinner assailant to the floor by the balcony. Then there was silence as Duo peered through the darkness, trying to make out what was happening.

Laughter, pure and loud, erupted, filling the room. Duo furrowed his brow. He knew that laugh...

That was the laugh he had heard on the trip from the boat.

Heero stared down at his best friend, speechless. Trowa looked him in the eye and laughed.

"I'm sorry I snuck into your room," Trowa said, cackling. "I just had to see your face."

Heero's face was indeed a picture as he stared, stunned, at his friend.

Lord Barton's hair had fallen from shading his eye to obeying gravity and falling straight to the carpet. His eye socket, black and empty, was easily seen from Heero's vantage.

But Heero looked not at the disgusting wound, he looked at Trowa's neck.

"Barton," he whispered in shock. "You cut your hair."

Trowa's hair was no longer at his elbows and matted. It was a clean cut now, except for the front, which he had left to cover his eye. Without the hair messing up his picture, Trowa actually passed as a gentleman, albeit a gentleman flat on the floor and laughing like a madman, but a gentleman still.

Heero raised himself to his feet and offered a hand to his friend, who took it and bounded up like a cat, rolling his shoulders and shuddering his upper body. "It's cold," he said. "My neck feels cold now, like I've taken off a warm scarf."

Heero sat down on his bed, staring at Trowa incredulously. "Is that it? Is that all you have to say about cutting your hair? It's cold?"

Trowa sighed and leant against the wall. In the night darkness he was hard to make out. "I decided I wanted to look good," he said. "I don't know why. I think I'm looking for a mate."

Trowa suddenly leapt from the wall and sat on the bed beside Heero. "What do you think?"

Heero took a deep breath and blinked. "To start, you're not an animal. You're not looking for a mate, you're looking for a lover."

Trowa sighed, curling his legs up to his chest. "It's the same thing. I'm looking for one of _those_," he said, jerking his thumb in Luna's direction.

"You can't have Luna," Heero said firmly.

"I don't want him, I want someone like him. Call it intuition, Yuy, but you're happy, and I want it."

Luna and Heero both stared fish-eyed at Trowa. Heero finally shook his head amiably, laughing at his friend.

Trowa sighed. "Truth is I wanted to talk to you alone. Like we used to."

Heero glanced at Luna, still wide awake. "We can go -"

"I don't care about him. It's the court and everyone else that bothers me."

"What is the problem then? Hurry up and get out with it so Luna can go back to sleep. He's not well."

Trowa bit his lip, a rare show of worry. "I had an odd dream the night before last."

Heero huffed. "We all have odd dreams, Barton."

"No, I mean a very odd dream. Normally in my dreams I'm not even there. It's normally about an animal or just some odd colors or something. This time I was in it, and I was aware nonetheless. Completely in control. I remember it like it was a memory, not a dream."

"So you've come to me because your dreams have suddenly changed their pattern? Why come to me? Why do you even _care_?" Heero mused aloud. "Dreams change all the time. They're unpredictable. That's what dreams are."

Trowa sighed. "It's not that. I could handle it if my dreams went odd. The problem is what's happening in these dreams. They're ..." Trowa munched on his lower lip with his teeth. "They're sexual in nature."

Heero paused for a moment in shock, then slowly started to laugh, as Duo stared on in shock. "Finally hit puberty, have you Trowa?" he asked.

Luna sniggered, a silent motion without a noise attached.

Trowa gave Heero a dry stare. "I hit puberty years ago. The issue isn't the sex. The issue is the fact that it was so real. The person I was with ... he seemed real. So real that it's ... the image won't leave my head. I can't force it out. And Heero," Trowa paused, scanning Heero's face in the thin light, trying to make sure that Heero knew from the use of his first name that this was serious. Things were happening to him that shouldn't have happened, not since his head injury. He hadn't felt the tingle of magic since before he lost his memory. Surely that meant that what he was feeling now was powerful? "Heero. I know I'm supposed to have forgotten the time I spent on the field, but this ... this is making hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I'm _sensing_ something unnatural. I can smell magic."

All joking was lost when Trowa finally announced what was really bothering him. "Magic? From a dream?" Heero whispered, his voice low.

"It's more than that. It's following me from beyond the dream. There's always the image of ... him ... in my head. I'm still functioning normally, it's just distracting at the moment. I still feel normal, except for this odd need to see him again. But I don't know how long that will last. This could just be the build up before I snap and my mind becomes controlled. I don't know."

Heero stayed silent, staring at his friend. "Is this why you cut your hair?" he asked quietly.

Trowa sighed. "Partly. I don't have it long in the dream. It's like this. And when I'm dreaming, I've got an eye again. He told me it was because this is the image I have of myself. That this is how I picture myself in my mind. The true me or something. I guess it just struck a chord with me, and I do actually feel more comfortable in my own skin like this."

Heero took a good look at his friend, worried and feeling slightly distressed. "You _look_ normal. You don't _look_ like your mind is being infiltrated by some horny sorcorer."

All the while Luna looked on, staring at Trowa with his head cocked to one side and a bemused expression on his face.

"If a sorcorer was able to get to you like this," Heero started, thinking hard, "Then surely they would be able to get to me. If it requires touch or close proximity, then they would be close enough to the both of us."

"We can rule out Tsu creating some fancy creature to _play_ with me, because the effect has been going for a long time. It has to be a powerful enough spell for his bands to bleed. He would have been bleeding hard since the dream."

"We can rule out any sorcorer that's banded then," Heero copied, taking a quick glance at Luna, who sat still staring, signs of exhaustion showing now.

"So the sorcorer has to be on the loose. Wonderful, that makes me feel better," Trowa said sarcastically.

"Good thing WuFei's coming. He should be able to get you some warded clothing or something to stop this," Heero said.

Trowa nodded. "But following that theory, why aren't my runed knives stopping it? They're more powerful than warded stitching."

Heero sighed and shrugged. "The sorcorer must be powerful. Maybe both some clothing and your knives will prove enough to fend him off."

Suddenly, Luna moved. Heero whipped around, ready to catch him if he fell off the bed, already berating himself for not being more careful, but it was unneeded.

Luna was laughing almost hysterically, silently, but hysterically, into his hand, staring at Trowa.

Heero snarled. He would have preferred for the boy to have fallen off the bed. "You don't think this is funny do you? It's an act against royalty. We call that treason, and punish it by death."

Luna very quickly stifled his laughter, shaking his head. A small shrug of his shoulders showed that a snigger had escaped out and he blocked his mouth with both his hands, pressing down firmly.

Heero didn't lessen his angry glare. "What is so funny then?"

At the permission to try to explain himself, Luna picked himself up and moved toward Trowa, licking his lips and furrowing his brow. How to explain what he had sensed? How to explain the magic emenating from Trowa?

He pointed to Trowa's head then shook his own head, crossing his arms and making fists, then pushing them down and out away from each other in a 'no' expression.

Heero was too annoyed to be interested, but Trowa was intrigued. "It's not all in my head?" he asked.

Luna nodded, yes. Then made the same movement, pointing to Trowa's forehead in particular and shaking his own.

"My mind isn't being taken over?" Trowa asked.

Luna nodded, twisting his lip upward, knowing that his body was yearning at him to collapse onto the bed, but his mind wanted to interact. He was lonely.

He pointed at Trowa's chest this time, then gave a nod of his head. Trowa furrowed his brows.

"Your mind isn't being taken over," Heero muttered quietly, paused, then kept speaking. "But your heart is?"

Luna gave Heero a grin.

Heero's sour expression softened, then he smirked a little. "You think somebody slipped him a love potion, don't you?"

Luna gave him an odd look with a raised eyebrow. Not quite. He shook his hand a little in a 'so-so' gesture. Love potions were outdated and the recipe was actually lost to the magical community, so it couldn't have been a love potion, but the effect was the same.

Trowa stared at the bedclothes, brows forced together and confused look on his face. "Why would anybody give me a love potion? From what I know of them, the image you fall for is the one that puts the potion in your drink. Meaning that I would have seen this person before in the castle somewhere."

Heero, having seen his slave's 'so-so' movement, thought differently. "Are there other ways of getting this affect other than love potions?" he asked Luna, uncomfortable with the subject but knowing it needed to be asked. "Know that I in no way condone your knowledge of this," he said warningly.

Luna shrank back a little at Heero's harsh tone, but he nodded his head.

"Would the person need to be close to us?" Heero asked.

Luna furrowed his brow and thought, scanning his memories about the subject. When he had been growing up as a child, his innate knowledge of all things magical had started to grow with him. At what he assumed was five years old, he knew the lore of their gods. By his assumed sixth year he knew how to summon power from his core into his hands, and unleash it into fire. After that he had received an onslaught of information very quickly, and sometimes it all jumbled up.

Then he remembered something, from that long time ago when knowledge had been thrust into his brain from some higher power. Soulmate connections. The information flashed into his head and stuck there, repeating until he knew and understood again.

Soulmates were always connected in some way, as they were two halves of the same whole. A sorcorer could tap into that connection and use it as a bridge to their soulmate, whether that be to heal, harm, curse or charm. Considering that the effect was that of a love charm, which would undoubtedly become real love given time, Duo deduced that it must have been his soulmate giving the charm. Probably some poor lonely sorcorer so desperate to feel loved that he couldn't wait until fate united him with his soulmate.

That being the theory, the soulmate bridge could be used to cross any distance relatively easily. Therefore the person may not be anywhere near them.

Seeing Luna's concentrating expression, Heero tested the waters. "They don't necessarily need to be close?" he asked.

Duo nodded. They would need to if they weren't the soulmate, but if not then they could be off the known map. The sorcorer could be anywhere, however it was most likely that they were in Karen. All soulmates crossed paths sooner or later in their lifetimes, normally sooner, so Duo expected that the caster of this spell must be somewhere near.

"Well," Heero said, breaking the silence. "If it is just some sort of love potion-like thing, then it's not quite treason. It's not as harmful as a mind controlling spell. But we aren't going to go on your word alone," he said sternly to Luna, who shrugged, having not expected to be heard out this far, let alone believed. "It's a good thing WuFei is coming," he said, repeating his earlier statement.

Trowa nodded, and the two were silent for a few moments. Sensing that neither of them had more to say, Trowa decided it was time to leave. "I'm sorry for waking the two of you. I hadn't meant to wake your slave, I knew he needed his sleep. And it was probably rather rude of me to sneak in anyway," he said with a small twist of the lips.

Heero shook his head. "You're welcome at my side at any time of day or night," he said, and Trowa gave him a serene, loyal smile. "Goodnight," Heero said.

Trowa let out a short breath, laughing a little. "Not likely," he said. "I haven't slept since that dream. But goodnight to you."

Trowa excused himself, leaving the room, and locking the door behind him with a key he had been given by Heero despite the fact that he could enter or exit without it. Heero's sharp ears heard the Royal Doorguard outside his common's door say a polite, not-too-surprised greeting to Trowa as he left the room through the main door. By this time they were used to his silent comings and goings.

Heero turned back to Luna and had to catch him as he collapsed, exhausted. He tucked him back in securely, upset about everything that had happened, upset at the threat to his friend, upset at the threat to his person via his friend, and upset that his slave knew all about the art that caused it.

Luna slept peacefully, but the night's events were not over.


	11. The Proposition Proposed

MoonChild

Chapter Eleven - The Proposition Proposed

* * *

When Duo woke, he was very hazy. All he knew was that there was lots of noise, and someone was pulling the blankets over his head and carrying him out of bed. He was placed on the floor, blankets tight around him, and his hood was pulled over his head. He came out of his exhausted hazy state to hear Trowa's voice ordering him very sternly not to move.

His eyes cleared and his mind came to, and he realized lots of things, but none of them made any sense. The Royal, Heero Yuy, was grunting and groaning, or at least Duo assumed it was him, he couldn't see for sure as his view of the bed was crowded by people, three of which in guard's plate armour, two of them were servants.

Irea's voice was there, talking, but he could only just see her through the people. She was on the bed, kneeling, and as one of the guards shifted he saw her more. She was straddling Heero, fully clothed and her face screwed up in concentration. Heero was beneath her, and Duo couldn't tell wether he was on his back or his stomach as the guard moved back, blocking his body from view.

He caught Irea's shoulders moving as she pressed down, hard, with all of her body, before the guard completely blocked her from view as well. Then the worst happened.

Heero screamed. It trailed off into a low, gasping groan, but it was obviously distressed. Heero was in trouble.

Duo blinked, watching wide eyed as Trowa left him and pushed a servant out of the way so he could sit lightly on the bed. Trowa reached for something out of Duo's view and when his arm returned, he was grasping Heero's hand. His knuckles were white.

All sorts of worries flew through Duo's head as he struggled to stay conscious and see what was happening, the most prominent being the fear that Heero would die.

He knew what position he was in. He was a concubine, a favoured harem slave. It didn't matter that he was new, traditions still applied. And tradition stated that he was to die with his master, in the same way, and be buried at his feet.

Duo winced as he heard Heero cry out again. This truly did not sound like a nice way to die, whatever it was that was happening. And even if he were to escape this fate, what then? As an ex-Prince's concubine, he was sure someone would buy him. Someone that would take him from the nice healer and warm bed, hit him and rape him and starve him for being ill.

Every sound Heero made forced Duo further into the floor he had been placed upon. Duo shrank down, shoulders heaving as he brought his hands to his ears, trying to block it out.

The stone floor was cold and he could feel it easily through the silk garments he still wore. He hissed, and he was so exhausted that when he didn't hear himself make a sound, he assumed that it was because Heero's cries were so loud. Heero was in agony and Duo was very, very afraid.

He didn't want to die. He didn't want to be a slave and he didn't want to leave here. Heero might be used to his every word being law, but at least he hadn't fucked him like some worthless whore yet. Duo didn't want to go somewhere where he would be, but he didn't like the option of dying the same way.

He curled into himself, trying to concentrate on how cold the stone floor was, trying to think of anything but Heero's agony. He felt his vision start to blur and darken, and he knew that this was just too much stress for him.

There was an odd smell in the room, and vaguely Duo recognized it as the smell of the potion for pain he had been given. Another thing that was good about this place, and he sobbed.

There was a sickening noise, like the sound two bulls make as their horns clash after a ferocious charge, and Heero stopped screaming. The silence was awful, and seemed to go on forever, until finally, there came loud, distressed breaths, deep and sharp.

Heero's cries turned into low grunts, then slowly into groans. Duo realised his eyes were wet and his nose was leaking. He sniffed and tried to crane his head, but he almost collapsed from the effort.

Then finally there was another sound from Heero, one not of agony. "Luna," Heero said in a short grunt. Trowa slid off the bed and Heero hissed.

Duo found himself again in the air, then being put back into bed with Heero, who was on his stomach, face first in the pillows. Duo saw on his bared back a scar the size of his fist. Irea was still straddling him, poking at the gruesome scar tissue with her thumbs.

Duo screamed at her to stop hurting him, then everything went black.

* * *

Duo woke late that morning, and only because he had an awful dream where he was sent back to Yarani, but for some reason also had a master, a fat, bald man who hit him all the time because he couldn't clean his house as he was chained to the floor of his cell.

He felt slightly better upon realizing that the sun was shining in on him, making everything blissfully warm. The sun never got into Yarani so he definately had been dreaming.

He also realized that he was lying with his head on Heero's stomach. His moving stomach. In, out, in, out. Breathing movements.

For once, Duo was glad to be there.

He lay there for several minutes, gathering up the energy to move and signal that he was awake. He was robbed of his preparation time by a voice that sounded horrible to his ears, whiny and scratchy.

"Good morning Luna," Irea said.

Duo closed his eyes, using all of his energy to make a pouting face. He wasn't ready to wake up yet.

Heero's hand was suddenly on his shoulder. Duo vaguely realized that Heero was half-sitting, half lying against the headboard, making his stomach a nice curved pillow for Duo's head.

Luna sniffed and pressed his head down into the lax muscles. He was glad he had woken up with his arm around Heero's hips, as it allowed him to weakly clutch at him without using all the effort of swinging his arm over.

Had he been facing Heero, he would have seen a very pleased smile. As it was only Irea caught it, but she kept it to herself.

"You got quite a scare last night, didn't you?" she said, leaning over and placing a hand on Duo's.

Duo nodded meekly.

Heero sighed.

Irea retracted her hand and put on a stern face. "I've just been having a chat with your master about what happened last night."

Duo clutched Heero harder, though it took quite some effort.

"Prince Yuy, in a rather _stupid_ move, neglected to tell you about his own health concerns," she went on, obviously rather angry. "He is entirely responsible for the stress you went through last night, and I'm not happy about it even slightly." She frowned. "Yuy. I am going to leave now, and you are going to tell him, in explicit detail, exactly what your situation is."

With that she rose from her place beside the bed and left without a word, leaving Heero to sigh again. He didn't say anything, staring at the wall in silence.

Duo used it as an opportunity to gather strength. After a few minutes, he hauled his head up Heero's stomach so that he could crane his eyes up to look at him expectantly.

Heero looked him in the eye for a moment, breathing deeply, slowly and evenly.

"I have an arrowhead lodged in my spine," he said quietly, watching Luna's brows furrow. "It's between two bones and has destroyed the connection between them. Every fortnight or so it makes the bones shift out of place."

Heero watched as Luna gave him a sympathetic grimace. "Irea can shift the bones back where they are supposed to be, but every time it happens the arrow grinds away at the bone, making it smaller and easier to fall out of place again. Two years ago this only happened once in a moon cycle, now it's half that time between them. Irea thinks that if it gets any more frequent than twice a week I will die from the amount of deathweed I have to have for the pain of it."

Duo lowered his eyes, upset at this new information. He had learned the hard way the night before that Yuy was human just like the rest of them, and this revelation just upheld that fact.

"Irea informed me of the tradition regarding bed slaves should their master die," Heero said quietly. "My father never kept a concubine. He had hundreds of harem girls, but never a special one. It's been a while since I've known someone who had one. I honestly forgot about it."

Luna sniffed, worried about what would come next.

"I made arrangements this morning about what would happen to you should I die before you. I've no doubt of what I will die of, it's small and sharp and in my back and it's not called old age," Heero said, smirking a little. "You'll go to my sister. She will adore you. She isn't well herself, though, so failing that you will go to Irea or Trowa."

Duo raised his eyes to Heero, feeling a little better, staring at Heero as he smiled a little wearily.

"You didn't think I'd want you buried with me did you?"

Duo looked down again. He hadn't been sure.

"I've no use for you if I'm in a coffin. Believe me, if I'm dead, I will be reuniting with my mother, not waiting for you to join me."

Duo chuckled a little, lowering his head back onto Heero's stomach. He sniffed and curled up more, tired. He suddenly realized that the black pillow, the silk one, the one he liked, was lying on Heero's legs, under his arm. He pulled it up to his face and buried himself between it and Heero's skin, and then he slept.

* * *

Life continued in a lethargic fashion for several days. Trowa calmed down day by day, Luna barely woke but for mealtimes, and even then only when prompted. It was put down to exhaustion after the ridiculously eventful last few days. Irea kept a careful eye on him, putting his pain relief for his feet in an incense instead of a potion so that he wouldn't have to drink as much. Heero gave him a bath, washed his hair and combed it again, and Luna stayed in dreams through it, just like the first bath.

He started coughing four days after the arrival home. It was a weak cough at first, but it progressed quickly to a heave that forced him awake. He could no longer be roused for meals afterward, as he woke so often to cough that he used up his small energy reserves.

Irea told him it was time. She said that she had done all she could and it was time to put him out of his misery. Heero sent her away and told her he would behead her if she suggested it again.

And so life went on.

Trowa had no more dreams, but the image of the beautiful blonde boy was stuck to the inside of his single remaining eyelid. He did seem alot more at peace with himself as of his shorter hair.

WuFei wrote back with the news that he was in the area and would be at the castle within the next few days. He had himself captured a child matching the description, but he would need to see the boy to be sure. In the meantime he had taken the liberty of requesting any information matching the description from the other sorcorer hunters.

Heero's back made no improvement, but it didn't get worse. He counted his blessings.

Relena got a very harsh cough, the kind she got when she was about to get very sick. The next morning she appeared at breakfast in the hall, cough gone, saying that Tsu had looked after her all night, getting her everything she needed, and that she had woken feeling much better.

Irea learned after breakfast that Tsu had actually massaged her shoulders and neck, and that was what really made her feel better, but the two women agreed that under no circumstance should Heero be made aware of that, especially considering his darkening mood.

For as each day went on, Luna losing more and more colour, Heero lost more and more of his temper. He was still a fair and kind Prince, but he was definitely easier to rise to bait. He snapped at people and glared at everyone, and he stopped smiling completely.

Relena spoke in whispers to Svelte, she cried on his shoulder behind closed doors. Her brother was reverting to how he was after his mother died. It was an unspoken knowledge between everyone in his inner circle that Luna was going to die. Everyone assumed it and no one refused to believe it. Relena knew that when he did die, Heero would completely become the little boy closed up behind the walls of his own skin. The temper would fade and not even the annoyance would show until he was once again the sad little Prince, mourning his mother and never letting anyone mourn her with him.

Truth be told, whenever Heero thought about it all he didn't get depressed that he was going to lose Luna. He got annoyed that he had let himself become so attached, and that he hadn't even had the boy yet.

He touched Luna's skin at night when they were alone. When Luna wouldn't wake to be afraid he trailed his fingers over the boy's arms, kissed his eyelids and held him close. But none of that changed the fact that Luna was slipping from his clutches.

* * *

Heero cried a week after he returned home. Trowa had brought him a newborn pup that he intended to train into a watchdog, and Heero found himself unable to look at the pup without visions of it curled up and dying.

Then he knew what he had to do.

* * *

Svelte entered the room. It was dark, and truth be told he was terrified. He had been ordered to come alone, and that worried him. He never left his mistress.

The first person he saw as his eyes adjusted was Trowa Barton. The Lord wore the garments he had been found in all those years ago, alone and wounded. The garments from his sorcorer hunting days.

Three runed daggers were squeezed between the fingers of his left hand, which was holding taut an arrow in his crossbow, aimed directly at Svelte.

The image of the silent warrior, minion of the Prince that despised him, did nothing to calm Tsu's nerves. His eyes flicked over to the window, where he saw the Prince in all his full armoured glory.

Heero's bow was warded, as was the arrow fitted in it and directed straight at his head. The sword at his hip was also warded, powerfully. It was enough to scorch the skin of any sorcorer that it struck.

Tsu considered kneeling before the Prince and his man. However he was in a position where he could be easily slaughtered at any given moment. He decided not to move.

"Svelte Tsu," the Prince said in a hard voice. "I have a proposition for you."

Svelte nodded, trying very hard to think of some way out of this. He really didn't want either of those arrows to hit their target. "You know I would accept any proposition you proposed, sire," he said, staring at Lord Barton's crossbow and allowing a nervous movement of his tongue. His brain had started working by now, telling him he needed to make himself very, very small and agreeable if he wanted to get out of this alive.

"Then here is my proposal," Heero said. "I am going to give you permission to use a little magic."

Stunned, Svelte looked the Prince in the eye. Slowly he nodded his head. "Why?"

"I want you to tell me what is wrong with my slave," Yuy said simply.

"Oh," Svelte said simply.

There followed a period of relative silence, very awkward silence.

Finally Svelte piped up. "You probably know that as a sorcorer, I have an innate knowledge of magic. I should be able to analyse him by spending some time close to him."

Yuy didn't even twitch. Svelte found himself feeling sorry for his poor slave. Yuy could be a real menace to anything wearing Yarani bands.

Svelte let out a breath, shifting where he stood. "Well. Here's the good news," he said, grinning a little. "I won't need my bands off to look at him." Svelte gulped. "Please put the weapons of my doom down. You're rather intimidating."

Heero lowered his bow, but he didn't put it away or resheath the arrow. Barton didn't budge.

Svelte wasn't so blind as to not see an improvement when it came. "Thanks," he said, grinning. He looked around the room, seeing a door that he assumed was to Heero's sleeping quarters. "Is he through there?" he asked, pointing to it.

Heero nodded, watching him rather the same way a hawk watches an owl to make sure that when they both dive for the same rodent they don't bump into each other and cause head injuries.

Svelte moved to the door slowly, making sure Yuy and Barton could see every move he made. He opened the door only after receiving a nod of permission from Yuy.

When he entered the room, Barton close behind him, he saw the boy on the bed. The covers had been drawn and the boy wore the same black silk he had worn on the day that Svelte had seen him with his mistress on the beach. He wore it like it was an elephant skin, it pooled on the bed beside him so.

Svelte immediately went straight to the bedside and knelt there, placing his hand, palm outstretched, placed inches above the boy's forehead.

"You will touch him as little as possible," came the Prince's voice at the door.

Svelte just nodded and stayed still, his hand close enough for him to sense the boy. It wasn't working. He pushed his hand a tiny bit closer, being careful not to touch with skin, when finally he sensed something.

"There is something magically wrong," he said aloud. "If there wasn't, I wouldn't be feeling it. Now I just have to locate the problem." He retrieved his hand, placing it in his lap. "There's just one issue before I start looking."

Yuy raised his bow again.

Svelte grimaced. "Understand that I would really, really like to tell you every single detail of whatever I find. That's if I can locate it. But ..." Svelte looked mournfully to the slave then back to Heero. "I really can't. If there's a way to fix it I'll tell you because I couldn't handle the guilt of a human's death on my shoulders."

Heero didn't move. "Treason," he whispered.

Svelte licked his lips, sighing and lowering his head. "The punishment for treason against you is death," he said quietly. "And if you're particularly annoyed about it, perhaps torture then death. Multiply that by the largest number you can think of, and that's the punishment I would recieve for disobeying the laws set down for us sorcorers. Understand it's not due to a lack of loyalty, but a fear of a worse punishment. The laws clearly say that no mortal should be informed of things to do with sorcory."

"Explain Irea Winner then," Heero sneered. "We all know where she learned to heal."

Svelte licked his lips. "I don't know the situation regarding that. In teaching his sister, Quatre Winner broke a law. I've no doubt he will be punished for it sooner or later." He paused and lowered his head, ends of his hair falling into his eyes. He blinked them away. "To add to that, I'm not nearly as powerful as I've heard Winner was. He might have been under the impression that he could fight off his punishment. I'm not."

Heero scowled. "You will do everything in your power to aid me in helping him," he spat. "If you don't you can multiply this punishment they would give you by the largest number the world's best mathematician can think of, and that will be your punishment."

Svelte sighed. He really didn't want to argue the point that should he defy the rules set down by the Gods he would be sentenced to eternal damnation, and that's not that easy to beat.

He placed his hand over the boy's left one. Issues with the hands were common in sorcorers, and not always visible. Svelte would first investigate the places that were common in sorcorers, like the places where magical blood flowed.

Active magic congregated in the blood in the hands and arms, where it could be released from the bloodstream into the palms of the hands, then manipulated into whatever form the caster wished, and released. Occasionally, especially in young ones, the magic would flow too far and hit the fingers where it would sit, unaware that it had passed its goal already, and try to go further. In young sorcorers that had this problem, they had not yet trained their magic to heal, so the only thing that it knew was destruction, which would cause anything from wounds to gangrene to magical infections in the fingertips.

Svelte found both hands lacking in that department. They were weak for a sorcorer, the muscles gave off a lot of lethargy, which was odd. The magic in their blood typically kept a mage fit until the day he died.

He checked his feet. The wounds at his ankles were completely unrelated to magic, and gave off signs that they had started to heal a while ago then stopped due to the body putting its resources elsewhere. That made sense. Svelte checked his feet and toes. The same kind of issue could happen in his toes as with his fingers, if the magic accidentally went the wrong way, down his torso instead of through his shoulder and down his arms. They were clear.

Sighing, he put a hand over the boy's chest. There he felt warmth leak into his hand, and he smiled. "You've got a nice one here," he said to Heero, feeling the boy's magic act on its own. It sent out a tentative presence to his, entwining, greeting, then retreating, back down into the boy's chest.

It was a clear signal of how ill the boy was. A welcoming of two friendly mages should last longer, with the exchanging of information and learning attached. This boy's presence was too weak to offer it.

Svelte inspected his heart, another trouble area that magic could harm. On occasion, with a healing mage, one that studied healing instead of destruction, the blood would be so filled with rich, healing magic that the body forgot how to do it itself. The heart was where blood, and therefore magic, frequented most, so it would be the first to stumble when a sorcorer found himself weak.

Sighing when he found the boy's heart weak only in a physical sense, nothing enough to be accounting for his current state, he went to move on, then froze completely.

Was that a pull? No, it couldn't be, the boy was too weak to pull his presence closer. But there it was again. Tentatively, he followed it, tensing, trying to make it clear to whatever was pulling at him that he was following solely of his own volition and would leave the second he wanted to.

The tug got more insistent. He found his hand placed above the boy's neck, directly atop what his searching magic deduced was the boy's jugular vein. The tug only pulled down now.

What was tugging, trying to pull his magic inside this boy's neck? If it was the boy's own magic pulling on him, it would be pulling toward his heart. Svelte pulled back, took a deep breath, centred himself, then opened his magic again, and there was the answer, clear as day, underneath his hand, attached to both vocal cords and jugular vein, sucking as happily as a piglet on the teat.

The poor boy had a leech.

"May the MoonChild have pity on your soul," he whispered, tilting his head upward to the rafters, staring through them to where he knew the sky lay. "May the SunChild have you born anew," he prayed aloud, but inside, he cursed the magic Gods, the Children, for allowing such a thing to occur to one so innocent.

But Svelte Tsu did not take into account his mediocre knowledge of the situation. All he saw was a leech and a very sick boy. He did not see what the MoonChild and the SunChild saw, which was a necessary evil and two very sick boys, or rather, two very sick Children.


	12. Last And Lost In Sky's Berth

MoonChild

Chapter Twelve - Last and Lost in Sky's Berth

* * *

Stunned was an appropriate word for Lord Barton and Prince Yuy's reactions as Svelte tore his hand from the concubine to cover his mouth, fell back and scooted away, then started to relieve his stomach of its contents.

Barton knelt by him, mostly from reflex due to time spent tending to sick animals. Tsu breathed deeply and heavily when he was finished, shaking and almost crying.

"I ... I'm sorry," he said, rasping. "I just wasn't expecting to see one of those again."

"What did you find?"

Trowa grabbed him by the arm and helped him stand. He sent a look to Yuy, then pulled Svelte out into the Prince's commons. Heero shut closed the hangings over the bed.

When he left the room, Trowa was at the door informing a servant girl of the mess. She went straight to the bedroom to clean up, and Trowa closed the door behind her. Heero went to his cabinets and pulled out a goblet, filling it with water.

He gave it to Tsu, who drained it immediately.

"Thankyou," he said.

"What did you find?" Heero repeated, sitting down on the low table immediately in front of Tsu's seat.

Svelte took a deep breath. "I can't tell you much," he said, grimacing. "It's lethal. I'm surprised he's lasted this long."

Heero growled, having not recieved an answer he liked. "How do we fix it?" he said harshly.

Tsu shifted. "There are three ways to get rid of the thing that's killing him. You're not going to like any of them."

Heero swore. "Tell me the one that uses the least magic."

Svelte nodded. "There is one way to get rid of it without using any magic at all. It's not going to work in this case though."

"Tell it to me!" Heero insisted.

Svelte shook his head sadly, but told anyway. "You can remove it by separating it from the body. It's in his neck though. You'd have to decapitate him."

Heero stood up roughly, tensing and swearing again. "Well that defies the point, doesn't it? I want him to _live_, not lose his head."

"The best alternative is to get the sorcorer who planted it in him to take it back. That's unlikely, because only the most evil of people ever plant these in the first place."

Heero grimaced and considered hitting something, but decided against it. "And the third way? You said there were three," he said, fuming.

"Well, the last option is to find a sorcorer more powerful than the one that planted it, and that person should be able to remove it."

"Could you?" Heero asked immediately.

Trowa sent him a shocked look. He had been surprised when his friend had asked him to help watch Tsu perform magic to survey the slave, but to actually use it _on_ the slave? That was something very odd.

Tsu meanwhile, had an even more out of place expression on his face. One side of his mouth was twisted to the very furthest of its limits, pressed down in a frown, while the other was slightly open. His eyes were even worse, it was as though he had meant to widen them in shock, then one of them had just forgotten to widen. Meanwhile his brows were in an uneven furrowed position, shaking a little.

He looked like a six year old in the guard's house when it was being attacked. Shocked, scared, and not at all in posession of his facial muscles. "I was worried you were going to ask that," he said in a high pitched whimper.

Heero meanwhile stared downward, completely unfazed, brows furrowed in concentration. "You're powerful, aren't you?"

Tsu took a deep breath and nodded. "I guess so."

"Could you?" Heero pressed.

Tsu made a grimace, twisting his mouth in the same way. "I ... I could try," he said quietly. "I ... I've never planted one of these things before, so I don't know ... I don't know how powerful someone would have to be to do it. I don't know what I'll be trying to beat," he sniffed a little, leaning forward and pinching the bridge of his nose. "It's just not the best thing to do. If I'm not good enough, it could kill me," he muttered, then cursed. "I know the technique to use. I could try it. But as you saw before, I'm not too good at dealing with these things. Thinking about them makes me sick. They're not _natural_, not like fire and all the _normal_ things sorcerers use to do bad things. They're evil. They're ..."

Svelte stopped suddenly, raising his head to stare directly at Heero in a rare show of humanity. He stared into his eyes, pleading wordlessly for him to see this for what it was, a truth to be said between two human beings, not between a slave and a Prince.

"They're like the spell that killed your mother," he said, then lowered his eyes, waiting for the Prince's reaction.

Heero said nothing for a few moments, then surprised Svelte by letting out a large breath and nodding. "Something summoned from the depths of hell to destroy someone gifted to our world from the heavens," he said quietly.

Svelte nodded, twisting his lip to display some rueful emotion none could name. "I couldn't have said it better myself," he said.

* * *

It was midnight when the Princess Relena started becoming stressed. She had been surprised when her brother had called for her slave, her dearest friend and confidant, but not worried because she trusted that Heero knew what Svelte meant to her. He wouldn't hurt him because it would hurt her. As the hours passed with no Svelte slipping quietly into her rooms, sending her a welcoming smile, she grew rather agitated.

At midnight, she gathered herself up with some effort, stormed out of the bed she had been too worried to sleep in, dressed herself loosely and stomped through the Royal Hall to her brother's rooms. What she was not expecting to find was Prince Yuy and Lord Barton in full armor, weapons drawn, while her slave's Yarani bands hung from Heero's hand. Following their aim she saw Svelte, kneeling by her brother's bed, eyes closed and hands out over Heero's sleeping slave. Svelte looked in a trance.

"What are you doing here, Relena?" Heero asked quietly.

Relena blinked a few times. "I could ask the same of you!" she said, still quite shocked. Her eyes flicked back to Svelte, watching him curl his hand just above the other slave's neck, seeing his sorcerer's vein protude prominently. She flinched back, biting her lip, and had to remind herself that it was Svelte over there, using the same hands that touched her on a daily basis. There was nothing to fear from Svelte.

"I am doing what you have been begging me to do for years," Heero said. "Extending a little bit of trust to your slave."

"You have to be joking!" Relena hissed, stepping closer to Heero to speak in a tone Svelte couldn't hear, despite the fact that he seemed too engrossed in whatever it was that he was doing to listen anyway. "Have you gone _mad_?" Relena said, distressed. "Even I wouldn't trust him with his bands off!"

Heero had not yet taken his eyes from the two sorcerers, and he had no intention of doing so. He twisted his head slightly to Relena's direction, but did not move his gaze. "Thus the weapons," he said calmly. "Relena, please leave. You're not wearing anything warded."

The Princess knew quite well that if Svelte were to attack her, she had no magical protection. She knew he could kill her in the blink of an eyelid. She had known that since the day they had met, and it was one of the reasons she was so attracted to him. "I can't leave now," she said. "He's always told me that magic corrupts. If it corrupts him ... I need to be here. I might be able to coax him out of it."

Of course, Relena didn't know that Svelte had long since passed the period when magic corrupts a soul. He had felt that pull when he was young, and he had forsaken it to take on a path of healing. He was not going to go mad, froth at the mouth and put people on fire just because destroying things was fun, like many weaker sorcerers. He was above that. The only danger was that he would decide he no longer wanted to sit around in slavery, and try to fight his way out.

Relena had never confessed her love for Svelte, and his status of lower than a peasant demanded he could never say anything of the like to her. The Princess feared that he did not care for her as she cared for him, and as such she worried that he would not want to stay with her.

She much preferred when he had his bands on. She knew then that although he could make a run for it, it would be harder, so he probably wouldn't try. Now she just feared he would leave her.

Heero knew a stubborn sister when he saw one, so he just took a step forward, placing himself between Svelte and his Princess, making no effort to make her leave.

And like that they stayed, watching Svelte work his magic. There was always a thin blue tendril of something they couldn't name, floating between Svelte's hand and Luna's neck. Every few moments Svelte would bring his hand upward, drawing the connection out, watching it stretch out and eventually fade.

He couldn't gage effectively how powerful the leech was. He feared very much to go in there and have direct contact with it, as leeches tended to just pull in and suck up any magic they encountered. If he went in there, it would try to suck him dry, and it would do so with the strength of whoever planted it, and it was highly likely that Svelte would be overpowered by that.

So he tried as hard as he could to see how powerful the thing was. He needed to know before he went in if it was bigger than him, otherwise the thing would kill him.

He wondered how long he had been there. His knees were numb despite the soft carpets. He knew he had to get this over with, there was nothing else he could do. If it overpowered him, then he would have to try to make a hasty retreat. If it didn't, then he would bring it out of the boy's body and destroy it.

He took a deep breath and moved his other hand to join its brother, knowing he would need all the magic he could summon for this. He straightened himself out and tested the waters, again, and still couldn't tell what he was up against.

He breathed deep again, placing his hands a feather's width away from the skin on either side of the boy's neck. Slowly, he started pushing forward.

The leech didn't make any kind of move, and it allowed Svelte to poke around. It didn't immediately latch onto him or attack, but Svelte stayed alert in fear it would make a sudden move.

He tried to coax it into moving up the boy's throat, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again and again, but the thing just ignored him, as though he were poking an elephant forward with a piece of straw.

He sighed and retreated, putting his hands in his lap. He needed better leverage over the leech, but the only way that he would get that leverage...

He turned to Heero, who still stood bow drawn. He saw his Princess standing behind him, and suddenly felt despondant. He hated that she saw him this way, she already feared him more than he liked.

"Princess," he said, bowing his head. "Forgive me, I didn't see you enter." He bit his lip, then wrenched his gaze away from the floor to look at the Prince.

"I need leverage," he said, taking a deep breath. "It's not particularly ... nice, but this is definitely the way it was planted," he said slowly, shakily. "I'll touch him as little as possible, but you aren't going to like this."

Heero glared. He didn't like it already, how much worse could it get? "Just do it," he said. "Do whatever you have to do."

Svelte climbed onto the bed, his knees on either side of the other slave. He pressed his fingers on the boy's lips, easing his mouth open, then held it open with his thumbs, resting his palms and fingers on either side of the boy's neck.

Luna stirred but didn't wake. Svelte took a deep breath and lowered himself down until his lips were a hands width from Luna's.

And then he began. He began whispering, chanting words in the Mage's Tongue, all the while moving closer. The sorcerer's veins in his arms bulged as his entire body tensed, his hands shaking with the force which he held his muscles. He moved his thumbs down, opening Luna's mouth wide, and he finished his chant, their lips but a finger's width from touching. Then he opened his mouth, asking his magic to pull the leech upward, while his hands nudged it forward.

Heero watched, red in the face, but didn't stop Tsu. He figured he wouldn't be able to take it if their lips touched, but he could hold himself back so long as they didn't touch.

Tsu closed his eyes, holding himself tense and still as he slowly pulled harder on the leech, trying to make it move from its position, but it was very settled and had been there for a long time. He doubled his efforts and immediately regretted it.

The leech finally recognized him as a threat, and then it was all over. Svelte tried to run, he tried to remove his entire magical presence, he tried to jerk his body away, but he wasn't in control anymore.

There was light everywhere. A bright whitish gold surrounded him, engulfed him, as he felt weaker and weaker. He feared he was going to die.

Then there were strangled cries meeting his ears as the light receeded. His mistress was kneeling by him, they were both on the floor. She was bawling. Prince Yuy was staring down at him, and Svelte could see a face reflected in his wide eyes. He didn't recognize it, it was white skinned, like a doll, with purple veins very prominent. Tsu realized he couldn't breathe, and so he struggled, watching the face in Yuy's eyes struggle in time with him. He reached out, fisting his hand in Yuy's sleeve.

"Elder," he wheezed. "An Elder ... planted ... it. Don't ... don't ... try to ... try to remove it," he panted. The face spoke with him. "Elders ... will kill you."

He watched the face in Yuy's eyes slowly blur and fade away. He wondered if he would ever wake up. He blacked out to the sound of his dearest crying on his chest.

* * *

Red as blood for fiery toil;

Blue as sky for peace of soul;

White for age and strength of heart;

Gold for power of mighty worth;

And last and lost in sky's berth;

Violet for truth and love of heart.

* * *

The aura had definitely been white-gold. The question was rather simple, was it white with gold flecks, or gold with white flecks?

Auras were a simple sort of sorcerer hierarchy. Those with red auras were peasants, less even, they were the scum that used magic to destroy and harm. Blue were nobility, who healed themselves and those around them, and started to try to summon creatures.

White was where things started to get most interesting. A white aura meant it was an Elder, who were the royalty of the sorcerer classes. Elders could summon, teleport, and heal so well they had stopped, if not reversed, their own aging.

Gold was where things got very dangerous. Gold meant he was up against the most powerful of the two Children, holding the same reverence and status as gods, the Sunchild, who took power from the sun itself.

Last and lost in sky's berth was the one sorcerer excluded from the hierarchy, the other Child. He was known as the MoonChild, and like the SunChild, took power from the moon. He was a god in the eyes of sorcerers, but if he were to come against the SunChild, he would undoubtedly lose. The SunChild was always born with a pure heart, but the MoonChild would always be shaped by the events around him, meaning that he could end up more evil than the lowliest red, or more pure than the most innocent of newborns.

The Elders of this time could still remember, and shared their memories of the last time the Children showed themselves. It was centuries ago. The SunChild had shown himself first, and he had tasked the population to aid him in finding the MoonChild, either to unite with him, or destroy him, depending on his person.

The MoonChild, a girl in that lifetime, had proven herself wilful but with good intentions, and the SunChild took her in. The rumours the Elders believed stated that although the two could keep their bodies young, their minds became old. They retreated into hiding, and years later, an Elder found their bodies, old and withered. They had died naturally, having wilfully halted their own healing.

It was a very common practice for Elders to die like that, for whatever their reasons may be, and after living for so long, one will accumulate many.

Svelte realized, as he listened to his Mistress and her brother speak about him in the next room, that he had just accumulated a memory he did not want to hold onto for an indefinite lifespan.

He hoped dearly that the Crown Prince would leave everything be. He hoped that Yuy would let the poor slave die, perhaps even end it for him if he was feeling particularly merciful. The existence he had now was just too horrible for Svelte to bear.

The Prince and Princess were speaking with Irea Winner, the trusted healer, about himself. She had not a clue what was wrong with him, and had only been able to suggest that he rest and be relieved of his duties. The Princess' tone was strained and fearful, as though she were afraid for him. She was such a sweet girl, Svelte thought, and it was no wonder that the Kingdom adored her. She even cared for a lowly slave like himself.

He found himself drifting off. He hadn't the strength to call out, signal that he was awake and alright. He was not sure if he succumbed to sleep or simply fainted where he lay.

* * *

Three days passed, both Svelte and Luna slept them through. Relena refused to leave Svelte's bedside, so he was eventually aided to a cot in her rooms. He could barely put one foot in front of the other, so Trowa and one of the Royal Guard supported him on either side from the Healer's rooms to Relena's personal quarters. Heero knew there would be a large scandal about it, but he condoned it anyway. He doubted his father would do anything about it, and he was absolutely right.

Luna's health steadily declined, and Heero watched it do so. Iria would have him count to fifty as fast as he could, while she counted the beats of his heart with her fingers to his neck. His heart dropped steadily from twenty seven beats to only twenty.

His fever receded at that time as well, but he was not getting better. Iria said the fever had gone because he had stopped fighting, not because he had beaten it.

He lost what little color he had left, and his entire body became cold. No amount of blankets could warm him. Iria told Heero that was because he had no reserves left to create heat.

Heero stayed with Luna when he could. He ordered that the fire in his commons be kept roaring, not because its heat would reach the slave, but because he could place coals over it. He had them heated in pans over the fire, then thrust them between the sheets on the other side of the bed to Luna, separating him from them with many blankets so there was no chance he would roll over and burn himself. Not that he had the capacity to.

When he deemed the other side of his bed warm enough, he would remove the coals and put them back on the fire, then move Luna to the warm side, only to repeat the process over and over.

Iria discouraged it. She didn't say so openly, but she believed that Heero was only granting the boy a minor comfort in return for the major discomfort it was giving by prolonging his life, and thus, his pain.

Heero found himself sitting in comfortable but desolate silence with Irea on his balcony, on the night of Bavier Six, summer, the very last moon cycle. Winter was approaching, the leaves had started to turn red, and the heat that Luna so desperately needed was soon to be but a sad memory.

The people were in the streets, and they could hear their celebrations even from the distance. Heero had sulkily spent the day in the city square, overseeing the festival of Winter's Come. He had flatly refused to stay any longer, and it had been a compromise on his part to even attend for the day.

The major celebrations were starting, and the children whose parents had neglected to put them to bed in favour of the festival were becoming overtired, loud and making raucuses. The people were individual blurs of colours, dancing recklessly in the street. Heero sighed and raised his glass in a toast to them. The chance few that had been staring up at the castle saw his movement and cheered.

Heero smiled ruefully. He just couldn't bring himself to celebrate Winter's Come. The night had an air about it, he could feel it, Irea could feel it. Something completely unrelated to the seasons was going to happen tonight. Something big. Something bad.

Irea slipped her hand silently from her lap and laid it upon Heero's knee. Heero stared at it for a moment, amazed at how soft her hands looked, considering how hard she used them. He placed his glass on the arm of the chair and took her hand in his own.

It was smooth, soft and Heero had no doubt it would smell good. He could just feel the cool touch of aloe paste on her hands. Who had she been treating today? How many ingredients had she crushed together, working those hands to callouses with the mortar and pestle? How many teas had she brewed? How many times had she dipped her hands into whatever healing salve she happened to be using? How many times had she built up callouses, only to feel them disappear as she rubbed healing paste into wounds?

It seemed oddly ironic that the woman that healed would in turn be kept young and supple from the medicines she gave to others.

Heero thought longingly to the dying creature in his bed. He wanted to feel that hand in his own, where Irea's was now. He wanted to feel it warm, alive and healthy. He wanted to feel it with rich, healthy blood coursing through its veins.

He didn't much care anymore as to whether that blood contained magic. The boy was going to die anyway, and suddenly everything seemed ridiculously unfair. What could he _possibly_ have done, as but a child, to deserve to enter Yarani? What could make him deserve whatever evil it was that had made Tsu retch so? Something so evil that even another sorcerer was disgusted?

And why did everything _always_ have to happen to Heero? _He_ was the one whose mother had been brutally murdered before his eyes. _He_ was the one who had a horrific injury that would kill him before his time. _He_ was the one who was so attached to his sister he had to watch her suffer every day from her own body. _He_ was the one that had had to grow up so young in order to run a Kingdom for his drug addicted father. And _he_ was the one who had just wanted a companion to love and be loved in return, and it had all turned out so horribly.

The boy was wonderful, and Heero doubted he would ever be able to replace him, despite his sickly pale skin, his weakness, his tattered hair that had _somehow_ become beautiful. Luna had been an incredible experience, beautiful though somewhat disobedient. Heero could only think of that time on the balcony when he had pulled his lips into his own, how it had felt to be so close, how it had felt to have Luna shivering in fear underneath him, how it had felt to see those eyes widen incredulously when Heero left it at a simple kiss. He wanted to see those eyes, wide and stunned as Heero tore away all his fears of intimacy, replacing them with what it really was, what it was meant to be. An expression of love, a showing of appreciation for what the other was.

Heero didn't even realise, as he looked over to the full moon, the beginning of the new cycle, that he was clutching Irea's hand as though it was a forgotten treasure that would disappear. He knew as he stared into that moon, that he would never be able to look at it without thinking of Luna.

Irea broke the moment that had taken hours, and she squeezed her Prince's hand. He realised how tense they had been around hers and forcefully loosened them, but he couldn't say a word to apologize.

Irea brought his hands upward with her own, and kissed his knuckles. Then her eyes met his, and her fingers darted to his cheek, caressing him like a wounded kitten.

She broke it. The silence was shattered and the knife in his heart was twisted as she spoke.

"Be strong, Heero," she said, and although he knew what was coming, he didn't want to hear the rest. She said it anyway.

"I think he'll leave us tonight."


	13. Impending Doom

MoonChild

Chapter Thirteen – Impending Doom

* * *

Mister Have paced. Things were not good at all. The Yarani _savages_ were being difficult, but that was not new at all. He expected difficulty with the Maguanac.

What was very bad was that he had _not_ been informed of a certain move made. He had heard that the Prince took one of the sorcerers under his care as his own harem slave. He had also heard that he had taken a mute one.

There was only one mute in Yarani dungeons, and he was _supposed_ to be roomed with Quatre Winner. He was supposed to never leave the prison. And yet here he stood, staring into the room, seeing that one bed was empty, the other with Winner in it, dead to the world and wheezing like he was dying. Which was nothing new.

He stood cursing at every Maguanac he saw in their native, stupid language, cursing their brains for being too small to learn the third tongue. The _better_ tongue.

Slowly, he managed to get the story straight. One Maguanac, one of the ones high in their ridiculous social hierarchy, which revolved around who was _liked_ the most (ridiculous!), had apparently taken pity on the mute and moved him, expecting the move would put him out of his misery. He claimed not to have known the boy wasn't supposed to leave the dungeon.

Then things got even worse, if that was possible. The Maguanac idiot, Rashid, said that Winner had woken up after the other boy had left the dungeon. Apparently he had been awake, weak but awake and talking. Rashid said he had then fallen ill again, and was back to the way he had been, if not worse.

Mister Have just wanted both boys to drop dead. It would make his job a lot easier if all sorcerers would just drop dead.

Of course, that would put him out of the job, so he should have been happy that sorcerers were alive, but obnoxious people like Mister Have don't count their blessings.

Which was rather stupid for Mister Have, as he cursed Rashid for being completely idiotic, saying he was simple, and Rashid cracked. He had been doing this for his entire life, standing around these dungeons and mourning the sun above. He was the one who had to see these supposedly evil people being treated like criminals, when so many of them were but children.

He was tired of hearing 'Winner this, Winner did that, Winner should just have been executed,' while he stood guard outside the poor boy's door. Tired of feeling like he was the evil one when Quatre would smile, wave and try to learn a bit more Yaanish every time he entered, when he wasn't comatose. He was tired of having to cut his meals if he was strong enough just to do that, in order to keep the poor boy weak so he couldn't try anything.

He felt oddly satisfied as he backhanded Have at the neck, watching him crumple to the floor.

With a conviction he had never felt before, he grabbed the man by his shirt, picked him up with one hand and fisted his other in the man's hair. He then slammed him into the stone wall, tightening his grip in his hair, and smashed his head into the stones, hearing his skull crush into his brain. Blood dripped from Rashid's fingertips as he let Have fall to the floor, and stared into his cold, dead eyes.

* * *

The black maned man walked with a very serious, prominent limp. He wore a constant snarl whenever his foot touched the ground, and if it ever became uncovered for eyes to see he would get extremely snappy. People would stop and stare in awe at his leg, burned and mangled beyond belief, and then look away, making very obvious attempts not to look at him.

He limped his way through the dusty street, his leg safely hidden from view by heavy black linen pants, matching his hair. He wore a large, thick coat left open over another coat which he wore buttoned up tightly. He pushed through the market crowd of the Chalc border city of Mia, tripping a small child as he went. Truthfully it was the child's fault for not moving from his path, but the man snarled down at the child on the dusty street, and the boy scooted away and ran off without a word.

He pushed open the door to the tavern, walking straight to the bar and staring around. The barman asked him what he could get for him, and the man said he was meeting someone here. He was pointed to a table over in the corner, where a man he had met only once before sat, signaling to him with his hand, his lengthy dark blonde locks entwined in his fingers. He stalked through the tables and sat opposite the man, smiling. The other grinned also, but for an entirely different reason. He knew he was about to get a job, which meant the fun of killing or hurting.

The first man smiled because he had some simply glorious information about the Prince of Karen Miya. Information which could be used to hurt him very badly, before he would be killed, but the killing could wait. Before death, Prince Yuy had to live a long and tragic life, and he would revel in the knowledge that he was responsible.

"The Prince of Karen Miya has taken a concubine," he said, then licked his lips. "A boy."

His soon to be employee looked at him with mounting interest. Excellent. A young slave. Hopefully this would involve the torture, rape, deform and return to the master routine that was popular among the Assassin's Guild.

"It gets better," the dark haired man said, smirking. "The boy is one of us. A sorcorer."

The dusty blonde furrowed his brow, sneering in disappointment. This complicated things.

"I want you to get in there. The Prince's rooms. While he isn't in them. I will arrange for the Prince's closest friend, Trowa Barton, an ex Sorcerer Hunter, to be there at the time. I want you to take out two birds with one stone."

The assassin stopped his sneer. Hurting more than one person in a single stunt? This was getting interesting.

"I want you to propose to the slave to turn to my side. If he agrees to do some dirty work for me, simple things, retrieving information and such, then you leave him alone but give him a nice little bruise, magically of course, he will be a friend and as such not to be harmed," he added, watching the assassin frown in disappointment. "When the Prince comes barging in, the slave looks like he fought. He keeps his cover and doesn't get the blame for Barton lying dead on the floor."

The blonde leaned back in his chair, grinning.

"You may of course choose to kill him in however which way you please," the dark haired villain went on. "I do hope you find some amusement out of it, though I am sure Barton will prove far too easily defeated for the likes of yourself," he said smoothly, practically watching himself bound up in the contracter's esteem. "Yuy will find his only real friend dead, and the one that did it conveniently leaping out the window to teleport to safety. However, if the slave refuses to help us, and my mage's intuition is telling me he will, this is what you are to do ..."

* * *

He padded through the stone hallway on soft feet, following a large man easily five times his size. He wore no emotions on his sleeve, for they were tightly curled inside of his heart, safe for the moment.

Blank eyes stared loosely ahead as small ears heard the sound of the man in white's voice behind him, getting farther away as he walked. The air had an odd sort of formality to it, as though this was goodbye for the child and the man in white.

The child, for his part, felt very little about the departure. What he did feel he kept so well hidden that he himself was even fooled into thinking it was not there. The man in white felt relieved, afraid and sad. Although this had been his intention from the start, he could not help but fear that somehow this was not the right thing to do.

The child was very troubled, the Sorcerer Hunter knew. He had been clued into this fact at first by the blank, sorrowful stare kept in dark eye sockets, then by the complete lack of speech, then it had been further reaffirmed by the way the boy would wake the entire camp of Hunters every night with a blood-curdling scream.

He was definitely troubled, but for all his might, the foreign Hunter could not fathom why he had brought him to Yarani dungeons.

Common sense dictated that as the child was a sorcerer, he needed to be locked away for the safety of all people. Common sense then dictated that considering the large amount of power he had displayed on the night of his capture, he should be in a very secure area, more so than most sorcerers.

Common sense then went ahead and decided that the boy should be put in the cell that had recently been carved out of the mountain for Quatre Winner. After all, both boys would need to be watched constantly by the best on the island, both would never leave the dungeon, so why not put them together?

Chang WuFei was all for common sense, so he watched the boy walk away feeling that he had made the right decision. Despite that, he felt worried for the boy he had grown to ... tolerate with mild affection. Winner wasn't known for being the most stable of people, and Chang would not put it past him to take it out on an innocent child.

But that wasn't the only fear he had in mind. What if Winner took advantage of the child's fragile state? What if he used the Winner's skills of diplomacy to implant strange ideas into the boy's head? What if they joined together and tried to escape Yarani?

Worse still, what if they ran amok? They could destroy the entire Kingdom.

No such thoughts were in either boy's mind when the large iron door was opened. It revealed a familiar hallway to the blonde on the other side of it, with an unfamiliar child standing in it. To the child, it revealed what would be his home for the next six years, and the fourteen year old boy that would soon become like a brother.

Quatre watched as the boy was steered into the cell and sat down in the room's only other bunk, which was really just a large hole carved into the stone wall. The boy stared up at the guard, watching him with big, dark eyes as he left. He then slowly drew his stare toward Quatre, who gave him a small smile. "Hello," he said quietly.

The boy didn't respond, simply watched him. "I am Quatre," he said, and again received no response, not even a notice that he had been heard. Quatre reasoned that the boy must have wanted to be left alone, he was getting that sort of vibe from him.

So Quatre lay back in his bunk, slipped his wrists out of his too-loose shackles, grinning, still rather pleased with himself about his escape artist's skills. He had been here for two months, or so said the notches he had carved onto his bunk using the metal shackles. During that time he had lost a lot of weight, due to the restrictions on his eating. Either way, no one had noticed yet that he could loose himself from his bonds.

Having slept all day already, Quatre found sleep eluding him, so he stared at the stone above him, doing the only thing there was to do in the sorcerer's dungeon ... wait.

The boy moved only once in the next several hours, and that was to curl into a very tight ball in the corner of his bunk, covering himself with the light blanket. Quatre glanced at him every now and then, and always found him staring, wide eyed, at the door, as though expecting something to happen. Every now and then Quatre caught him staring the same way at him.

Quatre noticed the boy started to nod off. His head would fall slightly and his eyes would droop, then he would snap back up, awake and wary again. Eventually he didn't have the strength to pull himself to, and he started to breathe slower in his sleep.

Then came the jerking. Quatre eventually stopped pretending not to be watching him and just stared as every few seconds he would fling a limb out, sending it crashing against something, then curl right back up. He made soft little distressed noises as he slept, and his eyelids twitched constantly.

Quatre found himself pitying the child, and as he lay there trying to decide whether it was right to go to him and comfort him – was he even wanted? – the boy suddenly let out an ear-piercing scream.

Quatre's eyes widened, the boy took a breath, starting to hyperventilate but still in the clutches of whatever nightmare world he was caught in. He screamed again, and Quatre still hadn't a clue what he was meant to do.

There was no movement outside the door. The guards weren't moving to come in, but _someone_ had to go comfort the child. So Quatre dashed over, pulling the quivering boy into his thin arms and rocking him slightly, trying to wake him up.

When he did, he didn't breathe at all for an agonizingly long time, then he stared at Quatre and he finally took a breath, staring at him.

Quatre could almost swear he could see the blazes of a fire in the boy's eyes. He wondered if that had been what he dreamed about, but he put that aside and smiled softly, easing himself onto the bunk with the other boy. He held him for a while, wondering exactly what terror he had been through. He realized after a few moments that the boy was still staring straight at him, and he met his eyes.

"My name is Quatre," he said softly. "What is yours?"

The boy's lip quivered, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse, as though it hadn't been used in a long while.

"Duo."

* * *

Irea suggested that Heero spend the night with Luna. She said she doubted he would wake before he died, and it was probably best to let him sleep, so he would die peacefully in dreams.

Heero took her advice, but twisted it a little. He gently removed Luna from the black silk he still wore, and he had warm water brought to him. He slowly, meticulously, sponged his slave's skin until it smelled of the rose soap. He propped him up slightly and brushed out the boy's hair, then he nestled himself behind the boy, holding him with his arms around him and his nose buried in the chestnut locks at his neck.

Like that they stayed, Luna unconscious and Heero in some sort of trance he believed was induced by the hair that he entwined in his fingers. Slow, soft tears wet his love's neck after a time.

Heero wondered just why he hadn't had the boy the second he could have lived through it. He regretted it now. He should have just held him down and pleasured him until he wanted it, not waited for him to give himself willingly.

Heero ran his fingertips, calloused from swordplay and woodwork, over the boy's collarbone, then trailed them up his neck and held it there, caressing his jaw with his knuckles.

He didn't know how long he stayed there, but it was a long time he sat, cradling his treasure, thinking thoughts about what a shame it was. He didn't even truly own the boy yet, and he wanted to. He wanted to scream it to the heavens that stole his Luna from him, that this boy belonged to him. He wanted to prove to himself that Luna was his, his only, but he only knew one way to claim a person as his own, and it would bring Luna's end sooner.

Heero wondered just how much it would matter. He was going to die anyway, and he just wanted him. He needed it. He couldn't let go without knowing that he had taken Luna. He just couldn't.

So he laid the boy down, settling him on the soft furs. He spent some time just watching him before he trailed his hand from his jaw to his chest, feeling how little it rose in breath. Luna was far too gone to even feel it.

Heero crawled over him, on all fours above him, and began to claim his mouth. He was careful to keep from covering his nose, as he slowly eased his treasure's lips open and into his own. He then delved in, claiming him, licking his gums and tasting his still tongue.

That was when the noise started. Heero heard the first hubbub and internally groaned in annoyance, ignoring it and praying to the gods it would just go away.

But his luck, as he should have known at this stage, would never allow such a happy event. The raucus got louder as it reached his rooms.

Heero stopped his plunder, pressing his and Luna's foreheads together and taking deep breaths, trying to calm the rising annoyance that threatened to send him into a rage.

Then came the banging on his door, and the most unexpected words of all.

"My King?"


	14. A New King On Winter's Come

MoonChild Chapter Fourteen, dedicated to dear Shevaleon. Been with me since day one, and hopefully, until the last day, whichever number it may be.

MoonChild

Chapter Fourteen – A New King On Winter's Come

* * *

It all happened very quickly. Heero wrenched on his sleeping pants, stumbling, and shoved closed the hangings of his bed, hiding his new slave as he left the room. He found a congregation of about thirty people in his commons, two more coming through the door with a keg.

When he entered, shirtless, shoeless and hair unkempt, he came face to jaw with Trowa Barton, staring at his friends neck and cursing the man for being so unnaturally lengthy in the legs.

Barton shoved a heavy, round object onto his head and Heero numbly recognised it as the Crown. Trowa then had the gall to ruffle the patch of hair inside it, though no one saw it due to the size of the crown and Trowa's body blocking the view. Heero's arms were raised, everyone fell to their knees, and somehow mugs of ale were in their raised hands, then came the deafening roar of that thing Heero despised – noise.

He forcefully resisted the urge to cover his ears with his hands, and was helped with it by the shock that kept him immobile.

"Father?" he mouthed, voice not cooperating.

"He sent a servant girl to get massage oils," Trowa said in his ear, looking pointedly to the girl the man had failed to deflower a few nights passed. "When she returned, he was gone. Irea's seen him, so has his Healer. He had left us already."

Heero felt his brow crease and his face, which had previously been tense in shock, relax its contorts and fall, its owner too depressed to even manage an expression. He couldn't believe it. Not now. Not now!

The people had risen, mugs clashing together and ale spilling onto his common's carpets. Heero stared at them all, wishing they would all just leave, stop being so noisy, but he knew it wouldn't happen. They would accompany him to his father's door, where he would spend a night and a day in mourning. Then he would exit his fathers rooms for the coronation ceremony, then he would move all his things into the King's Chambers, then he would take on all the duties of a King, which he wasn't really concerned about, he already did them anyway.

What concerned him was the night and day's mourning. He would be pushed into his father's bedchambers, he would stay there to mourn the father he had never truly known, let alone liked.

This tradition was so wrong. He loathed traditions. He knew he couldn't escape it though. He had to give these people _something_.

He cursed his father for daring to die this night, the last night he could have with Luna. Now he would have to move the boy into his father's rooms, with all the courtiers and guards following and making raucus, he would have to upset everything.

Irea was pushing her way toward him. Heero hadn't seen her enter, he had been so distracted, so forlorn.

She flung her arms around him. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I was too late, he was gone, and now you've got to go, and Luna..."

Heero turned his gaze to her. The men and women in the room were cheering, some were jeering, saying lewd things about Heero finally getting a woman. He dislodged Irea from his person, knowing there would be a scandal all throughout the Kingdom for her actions in front of so many, but he couldn't bring himself to berate her for it.

She had tears in her eyes. "The move will kill him," she said, sobbing. "If I wasn't sure before, I am now."

Heero shook his head numbly, then realised he had moved it in the wrong direction for agreeing, and started to nod. He was too far gone to care about his mistake.

"Trowa," he muttered, turning to where the tall man still stood. "Guard this door with your life," he said quietly. "Don't let anyone in." With that he retreated into his bedrooms, shutting the door and latching it closed. The uproar coming from his commons was unsettling. The people wanted him to go straight to his father's rooms. They wanted their new King in sight, until his period of mourning, not retreating from them.

Heero stared down at his slave, still nude, separated from the people only by a wooden door that suddenly seemed so flimsy, and a severely outnumbered Trowa Barton. He hurried, wrenching the biggest, longest, bulkiest fur coat he could find from the trunks at the foot of his bed, and wrapped it around Luna, watching him disappear beneath it as he belted it around his waist. Luna's hair splayed out from its hood and Heero tried to frantically stuff it back in, then he picked the boy up, his size easily tripled by his coat, and Heero thanked the powers that be for making the boy so short that the coat easily covered his feet.

Satisfied that the boy was as covered as he was going to get, Heero stalked over to his door, opening the latch and watching it get wrenched open by the throng outside of it. Barton was almost being tripped.

The people roared and Heero winced, then put his most stoic face on, and he began the walk.

They parted to make a path to his door, and Heero stalked through it, becoming numbly aware that he still wore his diamond diadem and his father's crown at the same time. He resisted the urge to bolt through the Royal Hall into his father's commons and hide in a corner. He took a deep breath and walked briskly through the hall, ignoring every face that dotted the hall, ignoring every word, every question, every movement, until he saw his father.

He was on a slim stretcher, carried by his two doorguards. They waited at the King's Door, waiting for the new King to farewell his father.

Heero felt his throat constrict as he approached. He wondered if it was because he was sad or angry. He knew that he was mostly angry, his father had the _worst_ timing, but he hid it as he wordlessly bent, kissing his father's forehead. No one had closed his eyes yet, and they stared, milky blue, into Heero's own. Heero debated whether he should make an attempt to close them, knowing he would have to juggle Luna, then scoffed at the thought.

Why should he? Luna had smiled at him in this short time more than his father ever had in his life. Why should Heero have to take his attention from Luna and give it to his father just because his father had decided to die on the same night?

Selfish, rotten man that he was.

Heero stalked into the room, hearing the people farewell. He heard someone cry, "To a new King on Winter's Come!" and he heard the people's roar and clashing of steins.

His father's windows were all flung open to air the room, servants cleaning and scrubbing every surface for its new inhabitant. Heero stalked to the bedchamber, letting out a breath of relief to see his father's sheets changed to a white silk set Heero had never seen before. His father's window, a giant glass occasion which covered nearly the entire wall, was also open wide, and Heero smelled little more than fresh air in his new bedroom, and there was not a trace of his father left.

He kicked the door closed with his bare foot, then walked the distance to the bed, noting that the room was larger than his old. The sheets were in fact a very soft shade of lilac, but looked white in the intense shine through the open window. Heero glanced to the window, remembering that tonight was the night of the biggest moon, and he smiled softly, the thought bringing memories of the Kyumakie and the moon's glow on Luna's cheeks.

He settled Luna on the bed, cursing his father again because Luna now had to lie in a cold bed. His hands went to the boy's belt and he fumbled with it in his rush.

He didn't know why it was so important, but somehow it was, and he had to get Luna's body into the moon's glow, had to see it dance on his skin, had to see the pale light on pale skin.

Luna was suddenly open to him, his slim form illuminated, white and pure before Heero's eyes. His chest rose and fell weakly, and Heero thanked the powers that be for this little bit more time.

He trailed his hand down Luna's side, his other reaching clumsily to his head and yanking off both crowns. His other fingers bumped over the boy's protruding ribs. He was so thin that Heero could see every movement of that ribcage, despite his shallow breaths.

Heero couldn't take it any longer. He just couldn't. He kicked his feet out of his trousers, not taking his eyes or his hand from their spot on his slave's stomach.

His. He had to be his. Heero pressed himself against the comatose boy, feeling them both, skin against skin, for the first time with no barriers at all.

He kissed him, then his neck, then his collar, then back to his neck, holding himself there until he could feel a weak pulse on his lips. He smiled ruefully into the boy's neck, then pulled back, slipping his coat from Luna's shoulders, easing it away from underneath him, then pressing him onto the silk bedding. His shoulders heaved as he choked out a sob when Luna didn't react to the precious silk, not even a twist of the lip.

Heero kissed his neck again, tilting Luna's head with his fingers so that he could kiss along his throat. He screwed up his face in concentration, cursing, begging, pleading with the thing his lips were but an inch away from. He begged it to stop. He begged it to leave. He begged it to let his love die in peace.

He left when Luna's neck was soaked with his tears and saliva, kissing and feeling his way in a straight line to the boy's stomach, where he pressed his head, closing his eyes. His hands continued down the boy's sides, mapping the curve of his waist and hips, then down his outer thighs. He felt the tender skin behind the boy's knee, and lifted one up, meeting it with his lips.

His other hand pulled his other leg away, then sat on his inner thigh. He trailed it down to his dearest's knee, then up again, delving under to slide between his skin and the silk. Heero vaguely thought that he could think of no better two things to be between.

Heero paused, his fingers almost at the place he so desperately wanted to bury himself in, and glanced up to the face of his beloved. He immediately regretted it, feeling himself and his resolve soften at the complete fatigued obliviousness in those closed eyelids. Luna would likely die halfway through this, Heero knew, and his face just reminded him of that fact.

Heero fought back valiantly against a sob and squeezed his eyes shut. In his mind's eye he brought back Luna's face, colored his pale cheeks tinted red in pleasure. He imagined him moving his head back, sucking in a sharp breath as he felt Heero touch him where no man had gone before. He saw against his eyelids, Luna's eyes as he moved his leg upward, placing it over Heero's shoulder, and spread the other wide.

Heero felt his way in, trying to pretend he hadn't noticed Luna's relaxed muscles. The entry he was granted was a harsh reminder that Luna was not in control of his body, and that Heero was doing this to him without consent, without even consciousness. That was all pushed away by the feel of Luna's insides against his forefinger, the way Heero could almost swear he could feel Luna's heart beating.

He made quick work with the boy, staring at his moonlit stomach as he pushed in another finger. It all would have been easier with some sort of oil, but Heero was there now and not inclined to leave to find some. Luna was lax and unresisting, which made it excusable somehow.

Heero kissed and lapped at the knee he still held above his shoulder, curling his two fingers and stroking them down lovingly along Luna's walls until they were almost out, then pushed in his ring finger. He almost thought he heard a rustling of the sheets from the direction of Luna's head, but he couldn't bring himself to look.

He stretched him as well as he could, hurrying because he didn't have the self control to wait any longer. He pulled his fingers from the boy, using that hand to lift his leg up, leaving the other leg over his shoulder. He used his hand to guide himself in, propped up on the other elbow. He groaned as he entered, too far gone to even feel the movement inside of Luna as he was stretched and penetrated, claimed, owned, finally his and his only.

Heero jerked his hand to Luna's hip, holding it there, shaking, as he found himself seated fully. He nuzzled his face into Luna's neck, smelling his hair between his own pants.

Finally he found the strength to move, and he rocked his hips against his lover's, unable to bring himself to back out of him, even if it was to thrust back in. He ground Luna into the sheets, angling to where he knew his pleasure spot would be, mostly from habit even though he knew his love was too far gone to feel it.

* * *

Duo was confused and his entire body was heavy, especially his eyelids. There was a sensation in his lower body, intense, like heat and lightling, streaking up into his stomach. As he came to, he realised firstly that he was hard as a rock, and he would have blushed if he had the strength to feel embarrassed. Secondly, he realised that something was _inside of him_, in the place Solo had taught him to fear most of all.

He couldn't bring himself to fear, as again lightning struck in his body, and something rubbed against him delightfully. As he came more and more awake, he realized there was breath against his neck, a body against his, and moonlight touching him wherever the body pressing against him, inside of him, wasn't.

He forced his eyes open, his ears hearing grunts from the man atop him. He tried to blink, bring his eyes into focus, but there was that incredible feeling again, making him slide his eyes shut and lose all train of thought.

He smelled something familiar, and suddenly everything clicked in his mind and he didn't need to try so hard to think clearly anymore. He smelled Heero, and he felt incredible.

The moonlight brought him slowly into more and more focus, but he was too weak to move. All he knew was that he was spread wide, vulnerable, and being bedded by the Prince and it felt good.

His eyes fluttered open and he managed to keep them that way, unfocused but open. He wanted to move his arms, wrap them around Heero, he wanted to push himself up and push Heero deeper inside of him, but he couldn't move at all, it was a wonder he could even breathe considering what was happening. It was too much for him, and he kept getting that feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever Heero moved. It was all too fast, too incredible and felt too good.

Heero's grip on his hip started getting tense and shaky, his movements jerky and his breaths uneven. Heero raised his head, suddenly needing to see his lover's face, and when he did, it came nowhere close to his imagination.

Heero let out a guttural moan, riding his pleasure as he stared at Luna's eyes, open, glazed, his face tinted red, his lips open and trembling. It was over far too quickly, the new King having been overwhelmed by the feeling of being inside his slave. He found himself in post orgasmic bliss, his mind completely empty as he held himself on his elbows, trying not to collapse.

Duo couldn't think for the shock. Suddenly Heero had stopped moving, but something else was happening, something that felt amazing. He found himself short for breath and completely overcome by the sensation of Heero's seed inside of him, filling him even more, touching his insides and triggering that feeling inside him that made him want to curl his toes and beg for it again. He couldn't, he could only ride with it as something snapped in him, and he clenched every muscle he could with a strength he hadn't had before, opening his mouth wide and letting loose a shameless, silent moan until it was over and he fell back, panting, mourning the loss of the intense pleasure but at the same time sated and relaxed.

Heero found himself staring in awe and disbelief as he fought to bring himself out of his haze to land his gaze upon Luna. He felt him come against his stomach, felt him tighten around him, and saw him moan in such an intense way. Heero was amazed and seduced by the workings of Luna's throat, the way his cheeks rose and his eyes fluttered shut, his slight tilt backward of his head.

Heero found his heart thumping in his chest as Luna collapsed, the fatigue back in his heated face, his eyes closed, his entire body lax again in a dead faint. Luna's lover, frantic, pressed two fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse, and when he finally found it, he could barely find the strength to heave his too-heavy body off his love, and he too succumbed to the exhaustion of the night's events.

* * *

He awoke feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and hungry. He had a sore throat, his ankles hurt, and his entire body felt as though it had been crushed underneath a giant boulder, but aside from all those things, he felt good. Terrible, but good.

He was warm, and he knew that was a very big blessing. He could barely count the amount of times he had woken up warm, excluding since slavery. He couldn't quite tell why he felt so placated, but he did, and all he could think of was the silk pillow he clutched to his chest, the warmth of the blankets compared to the refreshing cold of the morning air outside of them.

And then there was Heero. He was behind him, his bare chest against Duo's back. There was some kind of safety in his hold, his deep breathing on his neck. Vaguely, Duo knew what had happened the night before. It was blurred and unsure, but he knew that it had been sex, and it had been good, and that was all he could wring out of his hazed memories.

He stared ahead, seeing Heero's hand around his wrist. His master had fallen asleep there, waking up restlessly every few minutes and checking frantically for a heartbeat.

Something about that hand at his wrist, circling it, holding it there securely, made everything click into place, just as it had before, with Heero's scent.

He wondered why he hadn't seen it before, when Heero had first started being kind to him. He wondered why he hadn't realised it when Heero had first called him Luna.

Who was he? Who was he really? He was Duo Maxwell, sorcerer street rat, the one that built fires for the other cold rats. The one that watched the plague take the other rats. The one they took into the Maxwell Church.

The one that had stood waiting outside, while the church burnt to the ground with his would-be adoptive parents inside of it. The one that had run into the church, only to watch them die, charred to pieces. The one who had wandered, mindless in his grief, to eventually meet up with a Sorcerer Hunter and spend so many years in prison.

His life was just one tragedy after another. That was all that Duo Maxwell was.

But the second this 'Luna' came into things...

He furrowed his brow. Luna was the concubine of royalty. The favored harem slave. Sometimes masters even fell for their concubines.

Luna had silk, Luna had meals, Luna had a healer, Luna had a kind, _wealthy_ master. Luna had a warm, comfortable bed.

Luna had Heero. Luna was _wanted_ by Heero. That was it, wasn't it? Heero wanted the perfect slave. Mute, so unable to talk back. Sick, so unable to fight back. And maybe, just maybe, Heero might become able to care for him, not as a slave, but as a person. Maybe he already did. Heavens knew his luck had taken a big enough turn, why not a little more?

Maybe this Luna thing wasn't such a bad idea.

Maybe this entire situation wasn't such a bad idea. Could he really do it, he wondered. Could he put himself under someone else in a position of servitude?

Did he actually care about that anymore? What exactly had kept him from coming to this conclusion before? There was nothing bad about this.

All he knew was that Duo Maxwell was a lonely street rat with no luck at all. And now he had a choice in front of him, a big one, the likes of which he had never encountered before. Duo Maxwell had reached a fork in his road of fate.

On one side, there was no change. Just Duo Maxwell, the magician, the summoner, the Child. The one with mischief in his heart and death on his heels.

On the other, there was Luna, obedient and loved slave to Heero, mute but happy, weak but loved. With a full belly and a warm body, the fork in that road taunted him, calling him, telling him on no uncertain terms that at the end of this road lay Heero Yuy of Karen Miya, who would take no magic, no voice and no disobedience.

He hadn't used his voice nor his magic in six years. Granted, most of those years he had been unwell and sleeping, but it hadn't been that hard.

Magic would be hard to give up, but he imagined that if or when Heero truly trusted him, he might be able to enlighten him on a few subjects. He would never go so far as to set free all those in Yarani, because an easy third of them were evil, another third insane, and most of the rest were alright in character but angry at the royal family for imprisoning them for however many years. Magic and hatred came together in Yarani, the two most powerful things in the known world, the two things that could corrupt the most pure of souls.

Duo wasn't too keen on letting them loose, but he would not mind squashing the misconception that all sorcerers were evil. A very fair number of them were, but not all.

But even if it meant that he had to let those that were undeserving in Yarani rot, he knew which path he wanted.

He wanted to belong somewhere. He wanted a home. And it didn't bother him too much if that somewhere was not in fact a somewhere, but a someone. A someone with a crown, a warm bed, a Healer, plenty of food, a roof over his head, and a very reassuring embrace.

Luna had made his decision, and he closed his eyes, wishing himself a last farewell. He would keep one last tribute to Duo Maxwell, as he kept a tribute to every person of importance.

His best friend, Solo, gave inspiration for his first name. Father Maxwell, his last name. Quatre Winner, his voice.

Duo Maxwell, his hair.

Luna closed his eyes and relaxed in his master's embrace, feeling a large weight lift from his shoulders. He smiled, closed his eyes, shifted a little to get comfortable, and waited for Heero to wake.


	15. Mourning In The Morning

MoonChild

Chapter Fifteen – Mourning In The Morning With A King In Mourning

* * *

Quatre was exhausted. Tears ran down his face, creating clean streaks down his dirt marred face. He clutched frantically at his heart, rocking back and forward. Dimly, he was aware of a large red bloodstain on the wall that he had never seen before, but he was far too preoccupied with the pain in his heart to care.

The head of the Maguanac, Rashid, entered the room. The two guards at his door looked in with expressions of concern on their dark faces, which made sense, as it seemed to Quatre that he had been howling as loud as he could for hours.

Rashid lay a large hand on Quatre's shoulder. Quatre leaned into it and pulled on it with his own until Rashid's arm was around his shoulder. He heard a sigh, and then Rashid moved his other arm around him as well. Quatre clung to him and continued to bawl.

An empathic connection had been severed. Suddenly, without a doubt, Duo no longer existed. Quatre couldn't reach him, couldn't feel him, no matter how hard he tried. Duo was dead.

Quatre pushed himself onto Rashid, hiccuping and trying to catch his breath between sobs. Rashid muttered something in Yaanish and tightened his hold.

Quatre clutched at the large man, reaching out blindly to his heart. He felt concern, pride, fear and a desire to rebel that he was sure hadn't been there before.

Quatre felt terrible. His best friend, no, his _only_ friend was dead. Quatre felt empty without him, lonely, forgotten, but worst of all was the guilt. If it wasn't for his own cruel and selfish act, Duo would have had the power to escape Yarani and live a long and peaceful life.

Instead, Quatre had condemned him to stay comatose in prison for years, only to leave in order to enter slavery, whereupon he had died.

Oddly enough, Quatre could still feel power coming from the leech he had planted, but empathically, Duo was no longer in existence.

The possible reason for those two truths to coincide was unsettling, and made Quatre choke on a sob. Duo's body was alive and producing enough magic to sustain the leech, but the soul was either removed or split. Either way, whoever or whatever occupied Duo's body was certainly not Duo.

Quatre cried on Rashid's shoulder until the black claimed him, where he cried in his sleep.

* * *

Heero woke tense and afraid. For some reason he felt like he had when he clung to his mother's skirts as a small child.

He realised he was clinging to Luna, and remembered why he was tense and afraid. Luna's skin was warm where he held it, but he couldn't tell whether it was because of his own body heat or because Luna wasn't dead yet. He couldn't bring himself to move to check another patch of skin for fear that he would find out.

He remembered sleeping fitfully for most of the night. He had woken in the early hours of the morning, realising that he must have pulled the duvet over himself in his sleep because he didn't remember doing it before he went to sleep. He then realised that Luna was out, completely nude, in the cold of the morning and must have been that way during the night. He feared that he would have died out in that cold, uncomfortable, alone. He checked frantically for a pulse, listened for breath and was extremely surprised when he found it. He had pulled Luna under the covers with him, holding him until he was warm. Then he had fallen asleep again.

He feared desperately that Luna was gone now, and he feared it so badly that he couldn't move to find out. It would be just his luck, that the boy would live through the move to this room, live through sex, even wake enough to orgasm, then live through a night out nude in the freezing night air, only to die in the warmth while Heero was sleeping.

Then came a sound so perfect it seemed like music to his ears. Breath. He was holding his own, and there was no other person in hearing range but Luna.

He forced himself to move, sitting up on his elbow, leaning over Luna to see his face. Luna's eyes blinked open, then turned to him, soft and sweet. His lips curved in a lazy smile.

Heero's heart skipped two or three beats. He watched his lover's eyes move slowly away from his own to settle on his shoulders, where his brow furrowed and eyes widened.

Heero glanced at his shoulder, and saw it so tense it shook. He looked back to his slave, who stared at him warily, as though worried he was angry.

Heero couldn't help it. He laughed. It was strangled, but it was either that or cry. He dropped his head onto the boy's shoulder, his own shoulders heaving as he tried to hold it in.

After all this, Luna was worried that he was angry. After the emotional upheaval of the previous night, Luna was now alive enough to think that he was angry.

Heero raised his head slightly, looking up through his hair at his slave, who stared at him with a perplexed expression. Heero brought a hand up to cup his face, and to his total shock and awe, Luna leaned into it after but a moment's hesitation.

Then he brought his own hand to Heero's cheek, and ran his knuckles over it, just underneath his eye. He did it once, and when he pulled his fingers away they came back wet.

His hand shook very badly, so Heero took it in his own to support it. Luna smiled, then looked pointedly at the tears on his fingers.

"I thought you were going to die," Heero said by way of an explanaition, but it offered no answers to Luna, only more questions.

Was he really so important that the Prince would cry if he lost him?

He pulled his hand shakily from Heero's, who let it go after a few moments, and Luna pushed Heero's hair to the side for a better look straight into his eyes.

Blue. Of the dark, piercing kind, not the sweet, lighthearted kind. These eyes meant business, they meant truth, and they held no masks.

Luna smiled, staring his master in the eye, then realised something was different today. He raised his gaze, and his hand to the Prince's forehead, where his diamond diadem usually sat. He put his index finger to where it usually dipped and stroked it a few times before staring back to the Prince, who seemed to get the message.

"It's on the dresser," he said, nodding his head to the end table at his side of the bed, and shifting so Luna could see.

The first thing Luna saw was a large gold occasion laced with rubies. He recognised it immediately as the Crown. It was on every Royal guard's shield, it was on the Kingdom's crest, it was on their coins. It was crafted over four hundred years ago, when Karen Miya first separated from Sanq and the Lord of the small province became the King.

Sitting in front of it was Heero's diamond diadem, looking small and highly underdressed. Luna flicked his wide eyes to Heero, who shrugged his shoulders. "Father died last night," he said, as though commenting on the weather.

Luna stared at the Crown a little more, then back to Heero, seeing him in a completely different light.

This was the King. Not the Prince. King Heero Yuy of Karen Miya.

Luna swallowed nervously. He was the King's slave. He looked back to Heero, expecting to see something new. He expected to find himself looking at a King all of a sudden, seeing Royalty.

He saw a young man, hair ruffled from sleep, shoulders scarred from duels and falls, eyes red from tears, posture stooped.

He saw Heero. He didn't see anything different. Nothing had changed since their first meeting on the boat. Was that because Heero hadn't truly become a King yet, or was it because he had been a King all along?

Heero furrowed his brow and Luna startled, realizing he had been staring openly for a while and was probably being rude. He lowered his eyes, reached out and brought Heero's hand to his lips.

When he dared to glance up again, Heero was smiling. He leaned in and lay a kiss to Luna's forehead, then threw the covers off himself and went through his drawers, dressing in a pair of light drawstring pants.

"Hungry?" he asked. Luna nodded, smiling enthusiastically.

"Breakfast is probably outside," he said, indicating to the door to his new commons. "I'll bring you in some."

Heero closed the door behind him, reluctant to leave Luna but knowing that he should try to stuff him full of food while he had the chance.

Upon hearing his door click shut, he rested against it, allowing his body to slide down the wood. He sat on the floor with his knees raised, his elbows resting on them and his hands in his hair.

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

Luna was back, and feeling better. He had acted as though he hadn't even _noticed_ what had happened the night before, but Heero knew better. The sheets had been stained with their sweat and other fluids, and they had both been completely nude when they woke just now.

How had Luna not been afraid? Before, on the boat when he had been nude with Heero, he had reacted most unpleasantly. This time ... nothing. As though it weren't even happening.

Heero hadn't planned for this. The night before, there had been absolutely no doubt in his mind that his slave would not be breathing by this time the next morning, and yet here they both were. Luna had defied all expectations and _improved_ when all the things that had happened the night before should have killed him.

Heero's throat closed in and his breathing began to get difficult. He wouldn't have done it if he had believed there was even the smallest chance that Luna would live. If there had been any doubt in anyone's mind he would have latched onto it and cared for the boy the night through, trying to make that chance larger, trying to make him live.

There had been no chance that he would live. Heero had only done it because Luna was definitely going to die, and his having him wouldn't change that, only bring it a bit sooner.

And now Luna was not dead, Heero found himself in a terrible situation. His excuses for having the boy only worked if he were actually dead, but as he was not, Heero found himself feeling as though he had forced him. Which in fact he had.

No matter what the boy was ignoring or pretending now, if Heero tried to get close to him again there would be that fear of being forced, and that was not what Heero wanted.

His intention from the start had been entirely different from what had occurred. The plan had been to smother the boy in nice things, feed him well and the key factor, the most important thing, was that he would get better.

And he didn't. He got worse, so the plan had been abandoned ... and look where that got him. Heero took a deep breath. There was no way that Luna would trust him now. He would need to take drastic action to climb back into the slave's esteem.

The common room was empty, but as he had expected, there was a tray with breakfast on it. Having not known what he wanted, the kitchens appeared to have sent up everything they possibly could. There was everything on the tray from fruit to sweetbreads, cheese to ale, but the only thing missing was the potion for Luna. Irea must not have bothered to make it, and that presented the problem of what to feed the boy.

There were many things on the tray that would likely give his slave such a stomachache he couldn't eat again, or he would throw them up. He didn't want to let his slave, who had obviously grown up in a less wealthy environment, see them and be disappointed to learn they would hurt him at this stage of his health, but he left them there, knowing that if he took away everything that was likely to hurt him he would be left with only the bread and honey, and the King figured that if he had to give Luna real food, he may as well spoil the slave a little.

He paused, realising only because he had just thought about it that there was something different about the tray. The honey was in a bigger jar, and there was a note under it. Heero slipped the note out from it, flicking the folded piece of paper open, and was greeted by Irea's flowing script.

"_This was sent to me by my sister in Rivend. I thought it might help you to think of the good times."_

Heero picked up the jar, turning it over to see the label painted on it. _Rind's Honey_.

It was the same stuff that he had taken from the Kyumakie. The castle had its own beehives, and Heero knew their taste well, but the taste of Rind's Honey had been different, stronger.

He smiled, wondering honestly what he would do without Irea, and put the jar back.

After setting the kettle to boil over his fireplace, which must have been tended to by the servants that morning as it was roaring strongly, he picked up the tray and went back into his bedrooms.

Luna saw Heero reenter, carrying a tray filled to the brim with vibrantly colored things. His breath hitched and Heero smirked. "You look as though I've brought you the Kingdom's treasury," he said, placing the tray on the bed and climbing back in. He watched, amazed, as Luna propped himself upright, leaning on the bedhead, all the while never taking his eyes from the tray.

"You're feeling better," Heero said quietly, and Luna smiled so wide he showed teeth. "And stronger."

As Heero still tried to fathom why this change had occurred, Luna leant over the tray, his eyes scooting wildly from object to object, jar to jar. Heero smiled, and decided to start from one end to the other.

"This is mustard," he said, picking up a small container filled with a yellow substance. "Ever had it?" he asked. Luna shook his head, his hair flailing in every possible direction from the movement. "Don't," Heero said. "It will almost definitely give you a stomach ache, if you don't throw it up."

Heero cocked his head to the side, thinking. "In fact half the things on this tray will make you throw up."

Luna stopped smiling, looking crestfallen. Heero smiled ruefully, chuckling. "But the real way for you to know what you are and aren't allowed to have is by asking one simple question," he said, gaining Luna's full attention. He leaned over the tray, taking his slave's chin between his thumb and forefinger. When he was confident he had every single bit of his lover's attention, he said softly, "Do you really think I would refuse you anything?"

Luna's eyes widened and slowly, his open mouthed grin returned. He was sorely tempted to throw his arms around Heero and hug him to death, but he was so hungry and there was so much food right in front of him...

Heero wrenched open the jar of honey Irea had given him and spread it over a slice of bread. Luna watched him, fidgeting, fascinated, starving but too shy to reach out and grab something from the tray. Heero solved the matter for him by putting the honeyed bread into his hand and raising it to his mouth.

"Eat slowly," he said, and Luna nodded, taking a small bite and tasting the fresh bread. It had been a long long time since he had had fresh bread, and he couldn't remember what it tasted like.

He felt his throat tighten as he tried to swallow, and he looked at the bread. Behind it he saw the tray of food, things he had never seen in his life, and he realised just how different things were here. He wrenched his eyes from the food and looked to Heero, wondering how he could tell him. How could he say how he felt? How could he tell this Prince … this King, what he had decided while the Royal had been sleeping? How could he convey how grateful he was, how much he liked it here, how he wanted to tell him, to promise, that he would be the best he could? That he was going to try to be the perfect slave. That he was going to submit to him and him only in every way possible in return for everything. For the food, for the warm bed, for the kindness, for the love.

He found himself staring up at Heero, who was looking concerned. Luna smiled weakly and leaned in to Heero, lowering his head onto his chest, snaking his arm around his waist.

Heero shifted to put an arm aroud him, and buried his nose in Luna's hair, wondering exactly where this affection had come from. "Thankyou," he whispered, taking a deep breath in, smelling the hair. "I really like this."

He felt his slave smile against his bare skin, and shift closer. Heero fidgeted. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "It wasn't supposed to happen the way it did."

Luna wisely didn't attempt to move. Heero's arm had tensed without his knowledge around the slave, holding him close and still.

Luna just nodded into Heero's chest, moving his head to the side to rest his cheek upon his master's breast.

Heero continued, finding it hard to speak but knowing the words had to be spoken, and Luna certainly wasn't going to be the one who said them. "I was going to seduce you. Make you want it. But you got sick, worse, and everyone said you were going to die. I don't even know how you're not dead now."

Luna took a breath, feeling tears spring to his eyes, and he tried to blink them away. Boys don't cry, boys don't cry, he chanted in his mind before he remembered.

Solo told Duo Maxwell not to cry. No one ever told Luna not to. With a shuddering breath, he let them fall.

"I think we should start again," his master continued, and Luna's breath hitched. _No._ Not after he had just decided to be Luna. He couldn't have the opportunity to be Luna taken away from him. Who would he be then? He sure as hell didn't want to go back to being Duo Maxwell.

"If you wanted to, I'd let you ... let you leave my bed," Heero said. Luna heard his voice get strained. Leave his bed? Why on earth would Heero want him to leave his bed?

Unless it was because of the sex. Had that been the entire purpose of keeping him? To bed him, then throw him away?

_No._

Heero felt Luna's hands clutch at him as though he were a drowning man holding driftwood. He moved one of his own to hold one, sighing at his slave's weak, quivering grip.

"I understand if you're afraid of me," he continued. "I did not behave as a model gentleman toward you last night. I wouldn't resent it if you didn't want anything to do with me again. But ... If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to stay with me. You could stay in the antechambers until you're better, then serve me as an attendant. It's just that..." Heero stopped, raising a hand to stroke his slave's face. "If I can't have you in my bed willingly, then I'd like you at my side."

Luna's brows furrowed as though he were confused, but he was not confused, merely shocked.

Heero was giving him a _choice_. That he had not been expecting. Even if he had not chosen to be Luna ... even if he had not chosen to be with Heero, he would have had a choice. He wouldn't have been forced to be a harem slave.

And that was the frosting on the bun. Luna couldn't have been more sure that he was _exactly_ where he wanted to be.

"Would you like to go to the antechambers? I can have a bed set up for you, in silk, I know you like that-"

Luna interrupted his master, shaking his head furiously into his chest, tightening his arms around his waist.

Heero sat stunned for a moment, before whispering out a quiet "No?"

Luna stilled his head, keeping his arms firmly around Heero.

"You would like to stay here?" Heero whispered, incredulous, amazed beyond belief.

Luna nodded.

Heero died and went to heaven, despite the fact that he was an atheist.

They stayed there a while, master elated and slave a little unwilling to remove his arms from their place. Heero smiled, stroking his slave's hair, his face, petting him wherever his hands happened to be at the time.

"Go on, eat whatever you like," Heero said eventually. "I'll tell you what things are as you pick them up."

Breakfast seemed to last hours. Heero left when the kettle whistled and made them both teas that had been sent up with the tray. Luna picked up everything on the tray, setting things back down if Heero warned him they would probably hurt his weak stomach. He ate the bread, tried a strawberry jam, disliked the tea until milk and honey was added, whereupon he loved it. He seemed elated when Heero told him that Irea had a countless amount of teas to aid in anything, from nightmares to fatigue to pain, and she would probably give him a selection of them when he was ready to move from the more effective potions to the tea.

Luna was absolutely exhausted after his private feast with the King in his bedchambers, and Heero knew it. The tray was barely half eaten when they were done, but Heero didn't push his slave to eat more after he flopped his head on Heero's shoulder. Heero laid a kiss to his hair then scooped him up, laying him out on the bed, letting him get comfortable on his side before pulling the blankets back up around him, resting them at his chin. Luna nuzzled his way into them, seeming to disappear underneath the bedding, while holding the black silk pillow from the boat tight to his chest.

"Get some rest," Heero said softly, laying a kiss to his slave's forehead. "I'll be back soon."

With that Heero left his slave and went into his commons. He needed to send for Irea, mourning period bedamned.

* * *

Irea raced into the Royal Hall. From a force of habit she turned in the direction of the Prince's Chambers, forgetting that she would not find Heero in them. She turned around and had to meet the amused looks of the Royal doorguard as she barged past them and into the King's Commons.

"King?" she asked tentatively, staring around the unfamiliar room. She had been inside it only once before, the previous night, to see the old King and make sure there was nothing she could do to bring him back.

She knocked on the bedchamber door, but received no answer, so she very slowly, deliberately opened it, letting it creak. Heero very rarely didn't answer a knock to his door, so she knew _something_ had to be amiss.

She bit her lip, raising her eyes from the floor. It had to be Luna. He had to be the cause of the summons at such a time. Heero wouldn't have sent for her for himself, and if it were his back he wouldn't have been capable of sending for her, and she would have had to rush up here.

Only Luna could have caused this, but Luna would be dead when she saw him today. By her judgement, which was normally correct, he would have left shortly after if not during the move.

The only way Luna could have caused Heero to send for her and act differently was if he was affecting Heero even in death.

And that was _not_ a good sign.

Her Prince – King – was lying atop the bedsheets, his arm around a bundle of blankets that she assumed was Luna's body. Not good.

"My King," she said quietly, watching his eyes flutter, his hand twitch, anything to keep her eyes from his bared chest. She had seen it enough times already, and it always made her nervous.

Maybe it was something about the way his muscles just seemed to force one to look at them.

She really preferred him with a shirt on.

Irea chose a bad moment to flick her eyes back up from the floor. She saw his stomach crunch and tense as he woke and sat up, making his skin ripple. His shoulders were tense as her gaze passed them to look into the eyes of her startled King.

"I was sleeping," he said, bemused.

She nodded. "You summoned me," she said. "Was I not supposed to wake you?"

His brow furrowed and he looked at his door. "I'm surprised you didn't wake me when you came in," he said, looking worried, then looked back to her, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter," he said, his eyes straying to the mound of blankets between himself and his Healer.

Irea reached over them and grasped his hand, and then the King did something unexpected of someone in mourning. He smiled, looking down at the only piece of Luna exposed, a tiny patch of chestnut hair.

"My King?" Irea said tentatively.

Heero shook his head, and Irea saw his tensed shoulders and twitching brow. "I need to calm down," he said, taking a deep breath. His eyes flicked back to Luna.

Not good, not good at all. Irea was worried.

"I've gone insane," the King whispered. "And I'm loving it."

Irea started, frowning, confused. "How so?"

Heero shook his head and didn't answer. Instead, he asked her a strange question in a surprisingly serious matter.

"Do you know of anything that promotes insanity? Torture drugs ... maybe ... or arbhor. If someone wanted to retreat into insanity, how would you treat this illness?"

Irea took a deep breath. "If someone wanted to go insane, m'lord?" Heero nodded.

Irea made her way to the other side of the bed, so that Luna wasn't between them. Slowly, deliberately, she kneeled on it, placing herself indecently close to the King. She raised her hands up to him, placing them on either side of his face.

Her expression tightened, her jaw quivered. She pulled back a hand and slammed it back, knocking her King's face to the side.

"Don't you dare leave me," she said, falling back, holding his face in her hands.

"Healer," he whispered. "Check him for me."

She reached over him, pulling the blankets down.

The moment was an eternity. There lay Luna, on his side, his eyes wide, still open, gaze still. He was completely still.

He looked as though he had died with an expression of fear on his features. Still and pale. Not as pale as a dead person normally was.

She stared, her hand still clutching the blanket, fearful. What was that color doing on his cheeks? Why had time slowed down?

It ended. His eyes flicked to her. She felt faint.

It wasn't possible. He couldn't be.

No wonder Heero thought he had gone mad.

Now how was she going to explain that she'd just slapped his master?


	16. I Lied

Short notes from the author - Apologies for being so incredibly late with this, however no one can deny that my excuse is the most credible you will EVER hear. Ready? Wait for it ... here it comes ...

My gall bladder kerploded. Seriously. When the surgeon went in to remove it, there was like nothing there but scraps from the explosion, infection everywhere and some giant gall stones. So basically I've had infected bile leaking into my stomach and poisoning my food for the last year or so, and a gall stone the size of your uncle Fred's left testicle trying to get into my liver through a pipe the size of a pencil.

So basically, I am now missing a gall bladder and I'm all the better for it. Except for the cold I've had for the last 2months. But the good news is, this shit took place in my torso and not my brain so I haven't lost any writing capability, therefore, here's some MoonChild.

* * *

MoonChild

Chapter Sixteen – I Lied

"You need a bath."

Luna agreed without any apprehension. He badly needed one, as did Heero, whose coronation ceremony was to be held that night. He held out his arms to put around Heero's neck, as though asking to be picked up and carried. It wasn't as though he was going to walk there himself.

Heero didn't particularly mind all of the carrying around. It wasn't like the slave was heavy, and it was decent enough exercise. Something was different this time, however. Luna grinned madly when he was lifted into the air, and made an effort to actually get _closer_ to Heero.

Heero noticed this, thought it odd, but he wasn't about to complain. He was still rather shocked to his bones that the slave was alive, so any changes in his person seemed rather miniscule in comparison.

One of the few things Heero liked about his father's rooms, _his_ rooms, was the private adjoined bathing chamber. He also liked the balconies, one attached to the bedroom and the other to the commons. They both looked out toward the sea, and the sea breeze caused them to frost over in winter months. The city could be seen from the bedroom balcony, but the city could not see the balcony, no matter how many spyglasses they held. The balconies were very well made, sturdy and large, with plenty of room to entertain private guests.

Which was one of his father's strong points, not his, although Heero wouldn't have referred to those guests as guests, persay, more something along the lines of whores. But even then that wasn't an appropriate term, because they weren't often paid. Heero supposed that then lowered the guests to sluts, but he really wasn't fond of that word.

Either way, that was not the company he would keep. He would likely give Luna free reign of the bedroom balcony, if ever his legs healed enough for him to use it. Heero was uncomfortable with the thought of letting Luna on the common rooms' balcony, simply because he was uncomfortable with letting Luna in the common rooms. When people knocked on his door, if they received no answer they came inside to knock on the bedroom door, and that was all fair and well until the fact that Luna could not answer was added.

There was no way in this world or any other that he would let Luna alone in his commons.

However that theoretical situation was a long way away. At that precise moment, the most pressing matter that was on Heero's mind was the completely incredulous look on his concubine's face at seeing the bathing chamber.

It was all white porcelain tiles, with buffed metal taps, white towels, white handtowels, white handsoaps, white tubs, white everything. Except ... except the bottles of purple by the side of the tub.

Heero set Luna down by the side of the tub, holding him to be sure he was steady before finding him a bathrobe. Luna was grateful for it, as the tiles had likely been colder than death in this early morning. Heero steadied him again, making sure he had his balance and wouldn't topple before heading for the bottles on the side of the tub. It took him a while, due to the sheer size of the bath he had to circle, which could easily fit three men comfortably, deep enough to sit upright in and still have the water at his chest. It would probably reach Luna's shoulders, and he would have to be careful of him when he was in it.

The bottles were purple. He shuddered. They weren't even the good kind of purple, royalty purple, a deep, dark and rich color, the color of Luna's eyes when the light hit them just so.

They were a light purple, and Heero knew what that normally meant. Lavender. He loathed the stuff. If there wasn't another hairwash, then he wouldn't be able to wash Luna's hair unless he sent for a different wash, which would take time and he would have to move Luna all over again, meaning he'd wasted a lot of the boy's limited energy.

Finding no labels on the offending purple bottles, he opened one and sniffed at it, then reeled his head back and corked it again.

Luna was looking at him oddly. Heero sighed moodily. "Lavender," he said, holding up one of the bottles, reeling in his desire to throw it and smash it into the porcelain tiled walls. He knew that would just make the entire room reek of the stuff. "Lavender makes me tense. Despite all the herbologists saying that isn't possible and lavender should only make one relax, here I am, and if I use it to wash your hair I'll become an irritable monster."

Heero searched the almost endless supply of bottles for one that was even slightly different in color, and finally found one, a pinkish substance that smelled faintly of strawberries. It was beyond him who would waste strawberries, such a tasteful fruit, on something so mundane as bathing washes, but he was grateful for an alternative to lavender.

He turned the taps and heard Luna take a sharp breath of air as water gushed out into the porcelain tub. He had apparently never seen any such form of plumbing before.

Heero watched him stare at the metal taps and the water for a while before enlightening him. "Behind this," he said, knocking on the wall next to the tub, "are two water containers. Beneath this room are the kitchens' oven fires, which are kept hot all day. The smoke and hot air from the fires can only escape through a chimney on the roof, and the passage to that chimney passes directly behind the left container, heating the water, which comes out through that tap," he said, pointing to the left tap. "The other one is just a water tank with no heating."

He left Luna to stare at the two taps, mulling it over, while the bath filled. It didn't take long, even though the bath was very big, because the taps were very thick.

When it was full and at a proper temperature, Heero helped Luna out of his bathrobe and into the water, watching rather intently the expression of his slave as the water soothed and relaxed him. Luna looked up at him, his head resting on the porcelain, his eyes heavy lidded, and Heero was reminded of the very first time he had seen those eyes.

On the Kyumakie, the bath had been much smaller, Luna's hair much thinner, his face far less colored, his eyes far more weary. There was also the fact that Irea had been in attendance then. Her absence made Heero feel better.

The last time, he wouldn't have dared do what he dared to do this time. Luna slid his eyes closed, his head upside down to Heero, who still kneeled on the cold tiles with only thin linen pants to block the cold. Heero had not a bit of that on his mind as he leaned forward, catching Luna's smiling lips in his own.

He let them go after a brief second, pulling back after laying another chaste kiss to his slave's forehead. He didn't meet Luna's wide, stunned eyes, he just stood and untied the drawstring of his pants, letting them fall to the floor.

He joined Luna in the tub, sitting behind him, then held back a snicker when he saw the boy blushing and avoiding his eyes.

Luna was subdued and awkward for quite a while, keeping his head down and his eyes averted. He let his master rub his shoulders clean, but Heero could feel them tense under his hands. Heero would have said something to calm him, but he honestly didn't know what to say. Somehow, 'Sorry, but because you're still alive I'm taking everything I can get,' just didn't seem to sound very reassuring to him, so he stayed silent.

Luna behaved oddly when Heero washed his hair, tensed up one moment then relaxed the next. It was far better than the night on the balcony, but still not satisfactory in Heero's opinion. Heero took longer than necessary lathering the wash in, working on the problem, and eventually the slave seemed to get over the issue and relaxed completely, letting his head fall forward as Heero massaged his scalp.

Heero stopped only when he realized that the wash, now a white foam, was dripping into Luna's eyes, and was only not stinging him because his eyes were closed. He wet a hand towel in the water and pressed it on his slave's closed lids, and let Luna take over after a few moments.

Rinsing the hair seemed an endless task, if only because of the sheer amount of the strawberry stuff he had had to use. When it was finally done, Heero rested his head on the back of Luna's shoulder, smelling it in deep, slow breaths.

It smelled of strawberries, he supposed. He couldn't really make an accurate assumption because he had never actually bothered to _smell_ a strawberry before.

He tapped Luna on the shoulder. "Need to turn you around," he said. Luna was weak, but he turned himself around without much help. Heero helped him scoot backward a little bit to rest his back on the side of the tub. Heero washed his front, trying to keep his hands as innocent as possible, then held Luna's face between his soapy palms, running his thumbs over his cheeks. He leant forward, touching their foreheads and noses together, content just to be close, but Luna thought he had other ideas.

He could tell from the nervous biting of his lip, the intent gaze everywhere _but_ at him. Then he shifted, and Heero pulled away slightly, then saw his slave's knee just above the water to his right.

It took a moment to click together in his mind, but it did. He could feel Luna's other leg between his side and the tub, see his knee up out of the water, and that could only mean...

Luna was staring directly at him now, nervous, tense, his head down but his eyes on him. He blinked rapidly, his jaw tightening. His hand was tense on the side of the tub.

_He was offering_.

Scared to death, but offering. He was spread wide underneath the soapy water.

Heero didn't know what to say. He didn't even know what to think. For a moment he was tempted to take the offer, but he knew it was a bad idea. There were several reasons, the most dangerous of which being that Luna was likely to fall into a dead sleep afterwards, and a bath wasn't the best place for that.

Secondly, Heero just didn't think he could do it. He had already forced him once the night before, was it really necessary to push it on him again? The tremors shaking the boy's face said everything about what Luna did and didn't want to do.

He was exhausted and he _did_ want to go back to bed. He was scared and he _didn't_ want to have sex, despite whatever crazy theory told him he should offer.

Heero had not a clue what to say, so he put his arm around the slave, holding his head to his chest, but he kept their lower bodies away from one another. "No," he mumbled, "not now. When you want it."

Luna let loose a monumental breath, relieved to no end, and moved his grip from the side of the tub to Heero's shoulder. Heero pulled away after a few seconds, then dunked his head straight under the water, righted himself and shook his head from side to side, spraying the room and Luna with droplets from his hair. When he opened his eyes, Luna was shielding his face from the barrage, grinning.

Heero wished he'd done the same when Luna splashed water back at him.

His hair successfully drenched and the tense mood forgotten, he washed his own hair, annoyed when he felt that it reached his shoulders when wet. He valued his haircuts, unlike a certain other person in the room.

While he scrubbed himself clean, Luna rested his head on the back of the tub, letting the heat of the water relax him. More than a few times he started to drift off and slide down into the water, but he managed to catch himself before he dunked completely.

When finally Heero was done, he stepped out of the bath first, dried off and put his bathrobe on. He put his arms around Luna from behind, intending to lift him and sit him on the side of the tub, but that turned out to be a terrible failure.

Luna suddenly slipped, falling backward and out of Heero's grip. Heero managed to catch him before he went under the water by a hair's width, having difficulty because Luna was wet and slippery. Heero stayed still for a moment, steadying them both.

Then Luna was gasping, choking on sobs. Heero held him tightly, hoping he hadn't hurt himself, but all his hopes were to no avail. Luna struggled to breathe in between his unheard cries of pain while Heero just held him close, waiting for the storm to ease.

When finally Luna was breathing again, Heero rested his chin on the slave's shoulder. "What happened?" he asked.

Luna choked on another sob, and Heero watched him intently. It was as though he didn't really know how to cry.

With quite a lot of difficulty, Luna raised a leg out of the water, rubbing at it with his hand, then yanked his hand away, gasping in pain. Heero bit his lip. "You didn't try to stand up did you?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Those feet couldn't take any weight on them, and their giving way probably caused the slip.

Luna nodded, rocking back and forth, digging his fingers into Heero's arm, which still held him tightly. After a while, he bit his lip and managed to force himself to breathe evenly. "Let's try this again," Heero suggested, adjusting his grip on the slave, then hoisted him upward again. They managed to reach the side of the tub without incident this time, and Heero wrapped Luna in a large white towel, rubbing his arms and shoulders dry before helping him to swing his feet over the side of the tub to dry them too, gently as he could. Luna looked down at him desolately, flinching as his ankles were touched, holding his arms around himself to keep warm in the air that seemed so cold after the hot water. He seemed to dissolve underneath the bathrobe Heero put him into, teeth chattering.

Heero tried very hard to dry his hair quickly, but it just wasn't going to happen. There seemed to be an endless mass of water in it that had no desire to come out, so Heero just left it out over the back of Luna's robe, picked him up and carried him back into the bedroom. He sat him down on an armchair in the corner, then rifled through the chest of drawers for a comb.

When finally he found one, he returned to his slave, who had fallen asleep already, and combed his drenched hair.

It seemed like hours passed before he was finished, and yet the hair was still not dry, and seemed as though it was in no hurry to, so Heero took a spare blanket from the foot of his bed and threw it over the lounge on the bedroom balcony, then carried Luna outside, where the sun was shining, lay him down with his head on his lap and his hair outside of the blankets, in the sunlight to dry.

Heero fell asleep as well and woke only when the seamstress came to dress him for the coronation.

* * *

The coronation was just awful. People sang and danced, minstrels played. The colors swam in front of Heero's eyes, weaving back and forth, back and forth. Pretty girl after pretty girl talked at him. At, not to. The heavy crown made his head hurt and his neck strained.

He had looked forward to this day as a child, and realising how desolate he felt started him thinking. He had looked forward to this day because as a child, he had been naïve enough to believe his mother would be here, congratulating him. That was why his eyes kept darting around the throne room. He was searching for that which he would not find.

His imagination so many years ago had conjured up many images, his mother smiling at the table next to him, her in front of him at the throne with the people behind her in fabulous colours, cheering, her putting the crown on his head while he gifted her with a perfect tiara. Together they would crown each other.

But for all his memories of that perfect fantasy, he could not find one where his mother was not the subject and the coronation celebrations simply background clutter.

And as he tried in vain to stop his eyes from searching the Hall for her, he realised something incredible. He was not just looking for her. He was looking for _him_.

And then what he had not understood on the boat became clear. From that first gaze to Luna, when by chance he had spotted a trailing lock of hair, fate had taken hold.

Heero had been blessing his luck all this time for finding such a perfect slave. Mute so as never to annoy his sensitive ears. Weak so as to submit so exquisitely to his might. And his perfect behaviour that morning...

How could he possibly contribute all of that to _luck_? Certainly not his luck by any means. Was it too pretentious to imagine that Fate had brought Luna to him? Or rather, Fate had brought him to Luna? Had Fate then pushed the slave through illness, stopping his certain death?

Could it be possible that a higher power was _finally_ paying him back for all the torment it had put him through?

The King had no doubt that there was something between himself and Luna, something powerful. Whether it was there due to Fate or simply because Heero had been lonely enough to fall so deeply so fast was beyond Heero's comprehension, and also his desire to attempt comprehension. He didn't know the cause, the hows, the whys, all he knew was the current situation itself, which was that Luna was in his bed, ill but recovering, mute but cheerful, and most of all, beyond anything, he was _willing_.

Heero wanted Luna by his side during these events. He could never have his mother back, but Luna could be with him forevermore. Heero rested his head on the sturdy wood back of the Throne and closed his eyes to give them a few moments rest. He would skip the savouries after the meal, and bring some to his rooms to dine with Luna. Irea would throw a fit, as pastries and cakes are of little nutritional value, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

* * *

"Good evening!" sang the bright, cheerful voice Trowa woke to.

He groaned. The night after the King's coronation, and he got another unsettling dream. "You again," he said grumpily, sitting up to stare at the beautiful creature across from him.

The boy pouted, face falling very quickly. "Please don't be mean to me," he said. "I was sick these past nights. I didn't have the strength to see you, and it's hard to keep this up now even. Please don't make me sad."

Trowa looked at him, peering in the dark. His voice was so sincere, his somber expression told he was truly sad to be greeted so rudely. Trowa ignored it.

"My dreams are my own private space," he growled. "You're an invader here. I consider you even _being_ here an insult to my privacy, and I guard my privacy with my life," he said sincerely.

His companion looked at him, as though he were truly taking in his words. Then he reached up to an eye and rubbed at it. "I understand," he said. "But I ... I need to be here."

"Get out of my head!" Trowa roared. His voice buckled, it wasn't used to being used at that volume. It sounded, even to his own ears, like the raging howl of an annoyed animal.

The boy startled, shrinking back. Trowa very nearly apologised when he saw the shock in pure blue eyes, then he growled to himself. He was _trying_ to scare him away, apologising for doing so would be simply stupid.

But the slip had been made, and his dream friend saw it.

"I'm sorry. I could make it up to you," he said, quietly, demurely, for some reason trying to make himself smaller, handing control to Trowa on a silver spoon.

Trowa took it, berating himself, and steadied himself with a deep breath. "Like you did last time?" he said. "Buy your way into my dreams with favours?"

The boy looked him in the eye. "I'm not that shallow," he said. "I've barged into your privacy. It's only fair that you should enter mine."

Trowa darted back, pressing his back to the headboard. "I am _not_ going into your mind!"

The boy raised his hands to his shoulders, bringing his knees up, curling into himself. Then things started happening to him. Bruises appeared on every inch of available skin, grazes and cuts on them as well. He raised his head, and his cheeks hollowed in, his eyes sunk, his golden hair turned a pale brown. His body began shaking, as though eternally cold, and all of a sudden that beautiful, supple skin clung like rags to his bones. His breathing moved his entire body because it became so small. He looked to Trowa with big, dark, sunken eyes.

"It pains me to let you see me like this," he said, his voice hoarse. "Do you ... Do you see why I need to be here?" he asked. "I can't leave my mind in this body anymore. It hurts too much. Let me share yours. Please."

Trowa ripped his gaze away. It hurt just to look. Instead he stared down, and he saw his own body.

With two eyes. It felt strange, to have full vision again. He saw the centre of his chest, where an old scar, a scar he didn't remember getting should have been, but wasn't. He was scarless, perfect, in this dream still, while that effect had faded from the sorcerer.

"Take it from me," he said suddenly. He could feel the blonde glance at him, and then the scar rippled into existence on his chest. Slowly, his vision halved.

He glanced with his good eye at the boy, who was smiling weakly. "You look practically the same," he said. "A few nicks here and there."

Trowa couldn't help it, he chuckled, then raised a hand, sliding it underneath his hair. Slowly he raised it, flattening his hair to the top of his head, until the gaping hole was in perfect, unhidden view.

The reaction was not at all how he expected. There was no gasp, no vomit, which he had done when he first saw it. No disgust at all.

Instead, the skinny, bruised boy crawled closer, looking at the wound in absolute wonder. He peered into it, studying from all angles, before finally saying, "Somebody really didn't like you," in an awed voice.

Trowa let his hair fall back. His dream friend looked at him oddly, staring from his good eye to his hidden gone eye, then back and back again.

Then he reached up and covered one of his own eyes, locking the other with Trowa's own. "I like you anyway," he said, smiling like a devil. "But whatever am I going to do, now that you've given me another insight into your precious privacy?" He smiled again, then lowered his bruised lips to Trowa's neck. "Guess I'll have to repay you."

Trowa pressed his hands into the boy's hair, watching dust and dirt fall from it, leaving it golden again. "You said you weren't that shallow."

The battered boy stopped his tirade, smirking into Trowa's neck. "I lied," he said, and that was that.


	17. It Was A Little Bit Creepy

MoonChild

Chapter Seventeen – It Was A Little Bit Creepy

There was a hand touching his skin, a warm, big hand. It offered warmth and humanity, care and comfort.

Encouraged by the feelings pushing through the physical connection and into his heart, he opened his eyes.

Clarity came crashing down onto him. Prison. Manacles. Discomfort. Hunger. Weakness. Hatred. Cold.

Worst of all were the memories. Who he was. What he had done. What he had almost done.

Quatre heard a sound, a click, and the shackles were off. Water was running from clay at his lips into his mouth, then blissfully cool down his parched throat.

The canteen he weakly drank from was not removed as he was accustomed to. Any second, it would be taken from him, to keep him too dry to function, not enough to die.

The canteen was empty when it was taken away. Quatre sucked in a deep breath, tasting the tepid, rotting dungeon air. Then something else was at his lips, but his eyes were too unfocused to see. He could make out a big, dark hand, the partner of the one at his shoulder that sent his heart kind, caring messages. There was something in its grasp but he couldn't tell, then it was in his mouth and he cried.

_Bread._ How long had it been since he had eaten?

He chewed it slowly, strength being fed to him from his counterpart. As the water began to hydrate his body and the bread filled his stomach, slowly, Quatre came back to life.

"Rashid," he said, finally knowing whose hand was at his shoulder. Rashid had always been kind. Was that why the food and water had been given to him? Was Rashid defying orders?

Rashid sent a reassuring smile in response to his questioning gaze, then fed him another piece of bread.

Quatre sat up with an effort, staring around the room in shock.

His back to Duo's old cot, Mister Have's second sat, the only other that knew the native's tongue. His gaze was fearful, his body quivering. His eyes flicked from Quatre to Rashid to a large blood smatter on the wall, where he visibly became queasy and started over.

"Shnae," Rashid said, and the man tensed to attention at his name, poorly pronounced from Rashid's accent.

"Vuier tubehr de shinuncsh bohrues," Rashid began, speaking lowly and evenly.

"Phordor de tchiabherunzets di kalabshtenand."

"He says to tell you," Shnae started, and stopped when Rashid continued speaking.

"Thathch du ba du heyath miir-fiir reckrebend."

When he realised that Rashid was not going to stop speaking and wait, Shnae hurried with his translation, trying to keep up with what had already been said, what that would be in the third tongue, and what was being said at the time.

"There's a rebellion. Everyone's involved, the entire island. He's the head of the natives," Shnae pointed to Rashid, and gulped, his eyes flicking to Rashid's well muscled arms and then to another blood puddle on the floor, then up to the blood smattered on the wall.

"Siir rebokkna do hanaad, firbakarshna, atklar shegar, mir do yubukuuh."

"He asks if you will lead the sorerers, keep them from harming the natives, and if they can ... if they can ..." Shnae furrowed his brow, finding a word. "Use your name to intimidate Karen Miya into leaving them alone. He asks if you will back them."

Quatre's eyes widened and he looked to Rashid, who smiled and bowed his head.

"Bir do, bir do," the large man offered.

"Um," Shnae muttered. "That's a term. It doesn't really have an equivalent in our tongue. It's an expression about being willing to submit ... no ... more like follow your lead. In fact," he continued, looking at Quatre in a fearful frenzy, "Everyone's willing to follow your lead. Me, I'll do anything. Please don't kill me-"

Rashid glanced to Shnae and he quivered, falling completely silent after a whimper.

"Bir do, bir do," Rashid said again, lowering his head and smiling, peacefully.

Quatre furrowed his brow. A peace offering from his jailor. How strange. Slowly, letting Rashid see what he was doing, he moved his hand to the other arm's forarm, resting his palm on the heavy, thick metal of the Yarani band there.

Rashid nodded again in the same manner. "Bir do, bir do," he repeated.

Shnae whimpered again.

Quatre turned his arm so that his palm was aimed at the leather of the band, and then, for the first time in so long, magic graced his fingertips.

The leather dissolved into the air as though it had not been there to begin with, and Quatre felt the vein in his other arm pierce and bleed. Quatre pried the rest of the band from his arm, the skin underneath it looking withered and sickly. He moved to the other arm, hurrying a little at the sight of the blood on his palm from the wound the other band had given him.

With one arm unbanded, free to use magic unpunished, he dissolved the leather holding the last band in place. He quickly closed up his sorcerer's vein magically. He didn't have the blood to loose.

Rashid looked at him, slightly apprehensive. Shnae had fainted.

Quatre smiled, and raised his hands to Rashid's head. Both veins came into view, and Rashid frowned but stayed stayed still.

Quatre closed his eyes and Rashid saw the veins in his arms raise up, but he felt nothing. Quatre pulled his arms back. "I always thought Yaanish was a beautiful tongue," he said, rolling the strange syllables around with perfect ease.

Rashid's eyes grew large, his mouth twitched upward. "Master Quatre, you speak as though you are one of us," he said. "I always did fail to see why Karen Miya resented your kind. That is a wonderful gift you have."

Quatre smiled. "I am weak, I would ask one favour," he said.

"Bir do, bir do," Rashid said. "Anything."

"I would like to see the sun. Would you?"

Rashid had Quatre in his arms immediately. He carried him out of the cell, walking swiftly through the dungeon labyrinth until finally they found the exit.

Quatre left his head on Rashid's shoulder as they passed the gnarled tree statues, and finally, stepped into the rays of the evening sun.

Rashid watched Quatre's many bruises and cuts fade almost instantaneously upon the sunlight's touch.

* * *

WuFei stalked through the gates. Karen, the capital, was shining today. His woman at his side, the sun on his face, the wind at his back, a new and better King on the throne. It really was a pity he was too preoccupied to enjoy it.

He'd been greeted at the gates with not the customary "Hail King Jarekshi!" but a brand new "Hail King Heero!". It pleased him to no end, but he couldn't think of that now. The new King could be in danger.

He had taken a sorcerer for himself, the idiot. WuFei had forgotten the amount of sorcerers he himself had imprisoned under the order of the Royal Family. This sorcerer had been taken from Yarani, straight into the arms of Royalty. After however many years in a desolate hole like Yarani, no one doesn't form a grudge.

Yuy now had not one, but _two_ sorcerers in close connection. His sister's personal attendant and now his own. There was also the threat that his own was the one he feared it was...

WuFei grumbled. Those two sorcerers were too big a threat, too close to the throne. He had not personally captured Tsu, but he had been in communication with the one who had ever since he had shown up at the castle.

WuFei followed a very simple rule when it came to sorcerers. If they fought when they were banded, they should rot in Yarani. For example, Quatre Winner. If they didn't, then they can be let into slavery.

Tsu fell into the first category. He had fought with all his might to avoid capture. Therefore, he was pure evil and should be dead. Just like Winner should be.

Excepting the fact that Winner could live through anything.

So, by all sensible knowledge, the next step he should take was to see the new slave and figure out exactly who had caught him and under which circumstances. He needed the knowledge of whether he had fought. And some insight into his time in Yarani. Had he fought there as well?

It wasn't often, but the chance few sorcerers actually hated sorcerers. The chance few believed, for whatever reason, that magic was a foul and evil thing, and they wanted to be banded.

The best case scenario was that this boy was one of them. They were normally brought up in churches, very steeped in religion and what was right and wrong.

So, best case scenario, he would truly believe he was the scum of the earth, served his sentence quietly and obediently, and would now leap at the chance to serve a King and do some good to the world.

Worst case scenario ... was that he was the boy WuFei had put in with Winner.

WuFei sighed. He hated the way things stopped being pure black and white when that boy was involved. Before he had met that boy, the worst case scenario would have been that it was a sorcerer that fought the Hunter, fought his sentence, then finally settled to plot his revenge for however many years he spent underground.

Now, the best case scenario was a boy that had been captured willingly, and the worst ... the worst was...

Also a boy that had gone willingly.

* * *

WuFei felt safer now that Winner was gone. Every Hunter did. They had been trying to ignore the thrallstone's pull toward the Winner household for politics' sake, knowing the raucus that would ensue if they raided it, but the pull had gotten so strong it was interfering with Hunters across the entire Kingdom.

The thrallstone dangled from his hand, the chain normally on his neck now around his middle finger as he held it flat, palm down.

The stone moved, pulling with certainty into the valley below. No interference from Winner, safely locked away in Yarani. Which he would probably escape from someday, but not this day, so they were safe.

As safe as one could get, when one's occupation is hunting down the most vicious, unrestrainable creatures ever to walk the earth.

WuFei spotted the sorcerer. He was waiting in the valley for them. He was a powerful one, the thrallstone was adamant about that, yanking hard on WuFei's hand. It was a strange pull, like Winner's. Winner's had been to the extent that if one passed the Winner household, they couldn't hold the thrallstone like this or it would rip off it's chain … or, if they were unlucky, the chain would rip off their finger. This pull was insistant, but not as insistant as Winner's.

WuFei patted the sheath of his warded blade. Soon, it would slice through magic. Soon.

Hopefully he would live through this battle, as he had through Winner's. Hopefully he wouldn't lose anyone, as he had with Winner.

He motioned to his second, that fiery girl that he had once been forced to marry. He and she had agreed that they were not husband and wife when they had run away from home to this place. How he regretted it. How he wished she would let him marry her again.

They crept on silent feet down the slope. The sorcerer had a shield around him, and probably some wards. There were lines in the grass, and as WuFei's team got closer, they saw that they were runes, painted with blood on the grass.

They circled around him, cornering the man, blocking him. He was of about forty-five years, approximately six foot … three? Four maybe. Definitely not a novice to magic.

This was going to be hard. Unless they could startle him, get the bands on him while he was shocked. They drew closer. His eyes were closed in a trance, the veins in both arms standing out from elbow to wrist.

WuFei signalled to the team. Quick, military hand movements.

He didn't wait for confirmation. They all knew that if they missed a movement they didn't deserve to be in this elite team. Making one mistake in a battle with a sorcerer ... well, one would be dead before they finished making said mistake.

He charged, throwing himself over the runes, slicing through the shield with his sword.

It was over before it started.

Magefire rained down on the team outside the circle. It burned through warded clothing, shattered MeiRan's dagger.

Sally fell. MeiRan fell. Darder fell. Schi, Rij, Gath and Nomad. Wufei's foot was caught in the fire, the rest of him only saved because he was inside the sorcorer's own shield.

He caught MeiRan's eye. Pain. Burns. Sally was next to her, and her arm...

It seared up in flames, the flesh burned away and the bone revealed to char. She screamed.

WuFei's leg felt hot. The pain was mostly gone already, he figured later that it was because the skin was gone, so were the senses.

Defeated. In but a second, by one not as powerful as Winner. How could they have survived Winner, but lost in this?

Pathetic.

Suddenly WuFei realised the stone, still hanging from his fingers, was _changing direction_. It had been pointed straight to the sorcerer, but now pointed away.

Blue light rose from the grass. WuFei shivered. The last time he had seen blue light was Winner, after the final blast...

It was everywhere. Suddenly MeiRan's hair was no longer burnt to her scalp. It even looked better than it had before the fight.

Sally's arm seemed to ... return. There was no describing it, it was just there again, as though it had not just been burned into dust.

He could feel his toes again. From instinct, he scrambled to his feet, following the pull of the stone in his hand.

A boy stood on the slope, all of about eight years, his arms held high.

The stone flew from the Hunter's limp fingers to drop at the boy's feet.

When WuFei glanced to the other sorcerer, he saw him kneeling, exhausted, his energies sapped dry from the spells that had nearly destroyed WuFei's team. He was banded and subdued in moments, but it was not him that WuFei was worried about. When the team of Hunters finally approached the boy they were wary, cautious toward the one that had just saved not only their lives, but returned their limbs.

It was WuFei that looked him in the eye first. It was WuFei that saw those giant eyes in that sunken face turn to him and just look at him.

"Put your hands together," WuFei said, clearly, demandingly. The boy's eyes moved with him as he stepped closer, and as they raised up to look at him, WuFei saw just how much they looked like glass.

Like a stained glass window, tinted in violet, the color of royalty, those eyes stared at him with all the emotion of the stained glass they imitated. The child didn't blink, didn't move. He showed no sign that he understood what WuFei had said, or that he had even heard it.

WuFei knelt before the child, keeping his body tense, ready to spring into action. He kept his eyes locked with the empty ones of the child, and reached for his hands.

The boy broke their stare, finally blinking as he felt hands on his own. He watched the Hunter bring his small hands together, then began to bind them that way. He stared up at his captor, blinking again, but didn't move his hands.

WuFei wondered if the boy even knew what had just happened. With his hands together in that way, bound together as though in prayer, the boy couldn't use magic without it going through his own hand.

"MeiRan," he said quietly, and she stepped closer. She carefully untied a smaller pair of bands from her belt, and handed them to him.

WuFei fitted them himself, needing to know that they were on properly. The child didn't move as he twisted his arm and felt it, digging his fingers in to find the vein that could only be found on sorcorers. It was an easy find, the boy had no muscle or fat to hide it underneath. He blinked when his skin was pierced and stared down at his arm, but that was the only sign of life they ever saw from him.

When finally the bands were on and the boy had shackles attached to a chain firmly held in WuFei's hand, the Hunter looked him in the eye again. He stared at him, through him, as though he didn't know what exactly had just happened and was waiting for an explaination, but didn't really care whether he received one or not.

The boy never spoke, nor did he ever show that he heard or cared when someone spoke to him. The Hunters kept him separated from the other sorcerers, as they didn't want the small boy around the larger, older mages that they had recently captured. They were all pretty tense and easily aggravated, and would probably latch onto the first thing they saw that was smaller than themselves and easier to bully. WuFei also didn't want him near the sorcerer they had captured him with. If not for that child, the man would have been free, and WuFei had no doubt that was something the boy would pay for should he ever encounter that man again.

It was only during the night that the boy came to some semblance of life. He wouldn't sleep during the day, and only became relaxed enough to close his eyes when the moon was high in the heavens. MeiRan stayed with him the first night, sleeping by his side in the wagon they kept him in, and WuFei set up his bedroll outside of it, in case MeiRan needed help.

He was reading a book of proverbs, trying to engage his mind enough for his body to relax, when he first heard the most disturbing sound he would ever hear. MeiRan had, not a half hour ago, whispered to him through the door that the child had finally gone to sleep, despite his best efforts not to.

At first he thought the sound, a high pitched, keening wail was MeiRan screaming. He threw open the wagon doors and was greeted by the boy, struggling to breathe, his eyes clenched shut and his mouth wide open, screaming for dear life, as MeiRan held him, rocking him slowly back and forward. Slowly, under her hold, he shut his mouth, let his sounds die down to small whimpers, and opened his eyes.

WuFei wished he hadn't. There was something in them, something so beaten, bruised and defeated that it made WuFei seriously wonder if there was any justice in the world.

He'd always hated capturing children. Putting children in prison was something he really hated doing. Sorcorers tended to come into their magic as they matured, and children rarely had any magical ability at all, even if the power was there. They couldn't understand what they had done wrong, why they had to go away from their families and into prison, when they hadn't even known they had magic, let alone used it.

This one obviously had come into magic early, a lot of it very early, but the question remained, who and what had happened to create such a broken child? A child that hid behind stained glass eyes and kept his soul hidden so deep that it knew not what happened around him?

WuFei watched MeiRan hush the child, and eventually, the glass eyes returned. He blinked away the emotion from his eyes until all that was there were two big, empty, reflective eyes.

WuFei hated to admit it, but he actually preferred them that way.

* * *

"Do relax, husband," his woman whispered into his ear. "You said never to let him out, and the chances that they disobeyed you _and_ his Highness would take that same boy for himself are miniscule."

"That's why it's bound to happen," he hissed. "Things that one would never prepare for are what fate brings to them. And I was not prepared for this!"

"Shh," MeiRan muttered. "We're passing the you-know-what."

WuFei growled under his breath, his eyes twitching to the white marble pillars. He looked up at the top of the white mansion, seeing the aviary. Birds still frequented it, just as they had when the Winner heir had lived there. Untamed hawks, owls, doves and vultures alike sat peacefully on the roofs as though they had been domesticated.

It was a little bit creepy.

WuFei pressed on. He knew that Winner's sisters were at the windows, peeping at him through the curtains. He knew he would have to deal with that Healer sister of his as well when he reached the castle, but it would do no good to pause at the Winner estate, that family had enough to deal with without him bringing up memories.


	18. The Worst News All Week

MoonChild

Chapter Eighteen – The Worst News All Week

It was the worst thing Heero could think of, happening at the worst possible timing. He was stressed to his very core, and he was rather tempted to fling himself face first into a wall. Maybe it would numb the sinking feeling of dread in his stomach. The letter fell to the floor by his chair in the Receiving Room, a giant hall where he spent most of his day, tending to the issues the Kingdom faced, sentencing people for their crimes, issuing rewards for whatever heroic thing one peasant did for another. For that was what everyone became in the Receiving Room, a peasant of little or no status in front of a King whose word was the beginning and end of all.

Heero held up a hand to signal silence to the room's occupants, then let his head fall forward to rest on it.

Far be it from him to believe in something he couldn't see, but today he believed whole heartedly that yes, there was a God, and yes, he or she or it was out to get him. He rubbed his temples as a scribe picked up the letter and glanced at it.

"Would you like me to inform the servants, your Highness?" he asked.

Heero grunted his approval, then sighed melodramatically. He would just have to bear it and try not to grind his teeth into little stubs.

If there was anyone he really didn't want to come visit, it was Zechs Merquise-Peacecraft. The second heir to the Kingdom of Sanq, the first being his twin brother Milliardo, currently held hostage by Chalc, Zechs was a warrior despite all attempts by his pacifist family to discourage him. Zechs was fast to swing a sword and even faster to switch to spouting pacifist ideals, then muttering beneath his hands that pacifism was just a stupid idea, conceived by morons with nothing but shit for brains.

Heero sometimes thought he preffered the Catalonia princess, Dorothy, who was strange and scary in her own right. Completely fascinated with war, battle and anything that involved maiming or killing, at least with Princess Dorothy one knew where one stood, whereas Zechs Merquise said one thing and believed another, then said something completely different the next day and believed it whole heartedly.

"I'm so sad," said a somewhat familiar voice. Heero's head snapped up, about to berate whoever disrupted the silence, but fell silent when he saw the man standing by the great double doors, arms folded over his chest, righteous smirk contrasting with his white garb and dark skin. "I missed your coronation by not even a day," WuFei said mournfully.

Heero allowed the news of Zechs to be pushed to the back of his mind, as he stood to greet the foreign man. WuFei kneeled, muttering something about being too old for all this kneeling crap, then rose and winked. Out of hearing range of prying ears, WuFei said quietly, "Finally got rid of the bastard, did you?"

Heero snorted. "As if I would kill my sister's father," he said airily.

WuFei grinned. "But he _wasn't_ your sister's father, was he?"

Heero shrugged. "I admit nothing and deny everything," he said.

WuFei shook his head, chuckling. "That still doesn't tell me whether or not you killed him."

Heero smiled. "He was perfectly capable of doing that himself," he said ruefully.

"That is entirely true," WuFei said, stepping closer. His shoe landed on the letter on the floor and he glanced down, raising an eyebrow. "What's this?"

"That is what I guarantee to be the worst letter of the week," Heero muttered.

WuFei grinned. "I wouldn't say that, it's only Monday," he said, then hummed and picked up the parchment, smoothing it out. "The offices of Prince Zechs Merquise-Peacecraft seek to inform you that our good Prince is riding with all haste to speak with you personally on a matter of utmost importance," he read aloud. "Well, if that isn't vague, I don't know what is. Far be it from me to want anything to do with Merquise, but I still think Monday is too early to be making guarantees."

Heero snorted. "Five copper smalls. I will receive no worse news before this time next week."

WuFei gave a small twist of his lip. "Deal. Don't tell MeiRan, she discourages wagers. Though I don't see why. I always win."

Heero ignored that biased piece of information. "Are you staying long?" he asked.

"I fully intend to rest my weary, old bones," the dark man said with a hint of bitterness. "I'm really feeling the punishment of constant travel, and it's just not as easy as it once was. MeiRan and I are thinking of retiring, somewhere quiet."

"I'm disappointed to hear it," Heero said truthfully. "You're our best."

WuFei hummed under his breath, shaking his head. "The younger ones will overtake me soon. If I stay in the thick of it, all I will do is get myself killed, and I've too much to teach to die now."

Heero smirked, shaking his head. "It's odd the way things fall into place, isn't it?" he said. "I can't offer you quiet, but I can offer you permanent quarters in the castle. I wouldn't mind having you close by, as my collection of sorcorers seems to have doubled."

The foreigner's gaze turned dark. "Ah, we finally reach the serious part. I seem to recall stressing it on you when you first took on Tsu that ... let me recall ... I believe I said 'One is too many to have near the crown'?"

Heero frowned. "Yes, I recall that, and I tried very hard to adhere to it, but sometimes things just refuse to turn out as they were planned."

WuFei let out a snort. "That I can understand. Just remember, sometimes things refuse to turn out any way _other_ than the way they were planned, and that's even worse. MeiRan and I, arranged to marry from the very beginning, then we ran away, fell in love, and had to admit that our parents were right from the start. And one day I intend use that story to make my children believe that their parents are always right."

Heero shrugged. "Whatever it takes to make them behave," he said. "However I doubt your parents planned for yourself and MeiRan to run away and never return."

WuFei shrugged. "I wouldn't put it past them. Now, more importantly, about this sorcerer, I want to see him as soon as possible. I have a nagging feeling about who he might be, and I will need to be proven wrong before I can relax."

"Proven wrong?"

"Mm. I knew a boy that matched your description, ridiculously powerful, even though he was only about nine or so years when I met him. I don't want any mages that have any ... _talent_ to be anywhere near you."

"He's mute," Heero supplied. "Does that help to clarify?"

WuFei raised an eyebrow. "Mute?" he echoed. "Mute or just quiet?"

"He cannot make a sound."

The black haired man frowned. "No. That does not help to clarify. Not even slightly. It just raises more questions."

"How do you mean?"

"The Yarani warden, Have, sends me detailed letters every week telling me exactly what goes on in that God forsaken place," WuFei said. "As does every other Hunter. I've never once heard of a mute sorcerer, in prison or out. In fact, considering the way they heal, I should think it was impossible for one to be mute at all."

"Tsu thinks it's magical. Irea says it's not normal."

WuFei sneered. "Yes, well, I should think that Winner woman _would_ agree with a mage like Tsu," he said spitefully. "Either way, no mage ever entered Yarani as a mute, but one has left it as a mute, which means one became mute inside Yarani, but I wasn't informed of it, which means Have has some explaining to-" WuFei stopped suddenly, eyes widening. "Unless Have didn't know about it," he said. "Can we talk somewhere private?"

Heero nodded, turning to address the room. "Continue without me," he ordered, then he and WuFei stalked down the halls at a warrior's pace in the direction of the King's Commons.

"There's only one person in Yarani that would keep a secret from me," WuFei said quietly. "His name is Rashid, he's head of the natives. Because of that, and also because he's huge, I had him guard Winner's cell."

"I don't like where this is going," Heero said at the mention of Winner's name.

"Nor do I," WuFei muttered. "When Rashid and I first met, he had a limp. A year after I put Winner in there, it was gone. Rashid's been testy about Winner ever since. I don't know whether Winner healed it or it just happened because Winner was close by-"

"Wait," Heero said, stopping in his tracks. "They can heal other people?"

WuFei blinked. "Didn't you know that?"

"No."

"They can. It's not often done, in fact it's almost never done. I don't know if it's because it's harder, or if they're all just plain selfish, but it rarely happens, unless it's done by accident-"

"By accident?"

WuFei nodded. "Sorcorers tend to heal better than normal people. Scars disappear completely, chipped teeth grow back, sometimes even limbs grow back if you give it long enough. They do this without even knowing it, just like you or I don't put conscious effort into healing a cut. Sometimes, especially when they're banded, that sort of magic just splashes onto the people nearby, helping them heal whatever is wrong with them. It's one of the reasons I didn't sneak behind your back and kill Tsu while you weren't looking. I thought he might be good for the Princess, maybe even yourself."

Heero furrowed his brow. "There was an incident on the Kyumakie," he said. "Where Luna – my slave – had marks on his teeth, then a few days later they were gone. He never bled from his bands. Is that what you are describing?"

"Could well be," WuFei said. "A few days is pretty quick though, even for something so small as that."

They resumed walking. "You were talking about Winner healing someone in Yarani," Heero prodded.

"Yes," WuFei said, resuming his previous thoughts. "Whether Winner healed it on purpose or not, I'm pretty sure Rashid feels ... fatherly toward the brat. I wouldn't put it beyond him to keep it from Have if Winner did something and then all of a sudden his cellmate was mute."

Heero stopped dead. "No," he said, as though trying very, very hard not to believe it. "You don't think Luna shared a cell with Winner?"

"Remember that nagging feeling I told you about? The one where I wouldn't be able to relax until it was proved wrong?" WuFei asked. "Well, now you understand, don't you?"

Heero swore, loudly, causing a woman behind him to jump. "Why aren't we _moving_ then?" he growled, grabbing the older man by the arm and propelling him forward. "Let's put that feeling of yours to rest."

"The boy I put in Yarani was very powerful. Probably powerful enough to heal marks on teeth in only a few days," WuFei continued.

"It doesn't make any sense though," Heero muttered. "Luna got worse. Much worse. He wasn't well when I first took him-"

"Yarani can do that to them," WuFei interrupted. "Sometimes they just fall asleep and don't wake up, not even to eat. Naturally they get rather frail and ill after not eating for however many months-"

"_Months_?" Heero said, interrupting back.

"Yes. Months. Some of them last years. I don't know what it is, but a fair few of them lose a lot of strength in Yarani. It kills quite a fair number of them. Sometimes, though, and this is the really scary bit, the opposite thing happens, and maybe one or two every year get a massive increase in power in there, and typically when that happens the only way to subdue them is to kill them. I think it's the separation from the elements, you know, water, trees, that sort. Some of them draw power from certain things – I've never gotten one to admit it, but I'm pretty sure. Some of them draw it from stone, earth, and when they go into Yarani, well ... they overload. They get so much power so quickly that it goes to their heads, it can make them crazy. Sometimes it even starts to _hurt_ them. I saw one, one that wasn't really a fighter, went in there without a fight ... it was terrible. He had gangrene and fingers were falling off left right and center. He died not much later."

Heero slowed down, thinking. "If they draw power from nature," he started.

"Not all of them. About half, I'd say."

"Alright," Heero muttered. "Luna was ill and dying in Yarani. When I took him out, and onto the Kyumakie, he got better, pretty quickly. Pretty much exactly when we got home and he moved to my rooms, he got worse. But the night Father died, and I moved to his rooms..." Heero trailed off, lost in his own comprehensions.

"What? What happened?"

"He snapped back. You know how a giant wind can blow a reed flat to the ground, then the moment it is gone, the reed is upright again, as though nothing had happened?"

"That quickly?"

"Yes. It was strange. One night he was dying, the move should have killed him by all rights, then ... the moment we got to Father's rooms, he just got better. That morning he was in better health than he ever had been, and he has just continued to get better."

WuFei furrowed his brow. "So it's something he had little access to in Yarani, but just enough to stay alive, plenty of on the ship, little to none of in the Prince's quarters, and plenty of in the King's quarters," he summed up, then clicked his tongue. "I know the Kyumakie and Yarani pretty well, but the rest of the puzzle is your territory."

Heero sighed. "What if we can't figure it out? If he has continued access to this element, will it drive him crazy or make him powerful enough to defy me? Or will he start getting gangrene?"

"That depends on him, I guess. The good news is that access to it helped him heal – and those that get ill from their magic don't ever heal from it, so gangrene and illness is unlikely. Typically, too, when they can heal they're normally more ... solid in the head. Tsu can heal a bit, and he's reasonably sane. Winner healed like there was no tomorrow, and for most of his time, he was sane. Not particularly a good thing, because he was capable of rationally plotting out his moves in the battle we had, but he was sane for most of it."

"Most of it?" Heero echoed.

WuFei sighed. "Quite a while into it he just ... lost it. Went completely mad, started using more magic than he had in the beginning. At the start he had just healed himself, cutting us down with these runed butterfly swords that he just ... conjured out of thin air. He healed through every cut we made, so although he wasn't exactly your most talented swordsman, we just couldn't cut him down. After a while he started blasting us with fire, lava, summoned these two dragons, and then it got really ugly. He lost it in that battle. Completely lost it."

Heero sighed. "Well, I guess it's comforting to know that even he had to go mad before he would endanger the capital."

WuFei nodded. "Yes. He was very careful in the beginning. He knew we were coming for him, so he got as far away from the city as he could, but he wasn't going to go without a fight. Even so, he was careful, kept himself grounded, kept checking to make sure there was no chance anything he let loose would hit the city. That is, until he lost it."

Heero nodded, and the two of them fell silent as they passed the Royal Doorguard and entered Heero's commons. Heero rested against his large oak door, looking at WuFei.

"You never actually told me," he said quietly, "How you managed to beat Winner."

WuFei let loose a monumental sigh. "It's not exactly something I tell everyone. It's nothing to be proud of." He stared at the soft white carpets, rubbing his foot against a rug, as though he were unhappy with the topic of conversation. He took a deep breath before he started. "See, we like to tell everyone that we beat him, so that when other sorcorers hear about us, they get worried that we're really a force to be reckoned with. They spend all their time trying to figure out how we did it, what amazing skill we used, how they can counter that attack, that they leave no time left to actually train their magic. So when we get there, they're so afraid of us and our mystery Winner-beating skills, that they aren't that difficult to take down." WuFei lowered his head, biting his lip lightly and staring at the wall, the furniture, anywhere but Heero.

"I didn't exactly beat him," he said softly.

"You didn't? Who did?" Heero asked.

WuFei shook his head, staring down at his feet. "He did," he said, taking another shaky breath. "Promise me something, please, my King," he said tentatively. "Never, ever go up against Winner. The only thing that can beat Winner is Winner himself."

There was a pause, a pregnant silence, as Heero contemplated that statement and WuFei attempted to find the right words to go on.

"The last blast," WuFei said. "It was huge and headed straight for Karen. It would have decimated the entire city if it had reached it."

"How did you stop it?" Heero asked.

"I didn't. We didn't. Winner realised what he had done. He realised what he had just let loose, and where it was headed. He teleported himself in front of it, between it and the city. He took the entire thing on himself."

Heero let a tense breath escape his lips, staring across the room at WuFei. "And that's how he was subdued enough to be banded?"

WuFei nodded. "This isn't exactly a story we Hunter's like to tell. It doesn't put us up on a pedestal. We didn't win, we didn't beat him, the only reason he's in Yarani today is because he subdued himself."

Heero sighed, shaking his head. "Why didn't you just kill him while he was injured?"

WuFei let out a sarcastic laugh. "Oh I tried, believe me. We all did. The only reason he's in Yarani is because he just wouldn't _die_."

Heero furrowed his brow. "What?"

WuFei grumbled, shaking his head sadly. "He healed faster than we could wound him, and that's even _with_ Yarani bands on. The final blast scorched his skin from his body, separated an arm and a leg, he grew it all back within an hour. He healed a stab through the heart faster than I could pull my blade out."

Heero swore, fascinated in a morbid sort of way.

WuFei sighed. "He'll escape one day," he said, sadly. "He'll get out of there, and he'll either run the other way or come back to us for vengeance. I'm hoping it'll be the former."

Heero nodded solemnly. "Do you think he would threaten the capital again? Or the people in general?"

WuFei shook his head. "No, his grudge is personal. If he comes, it will be for me and possibly you. I don't think he could take the guilt of the death of innocent peasants on his head. You should have seen the look on his face when he realised where his spell was headed. He was mortified, terrified. I don't think he will ever enter a battle of that scale again. If he comes, he'll come for us one at a time, he won't endanger the city. Just those responsible for the imprisonment of sorcerers."

It was another tense moment before WuFei spoke again. "And possibly rescue his cellmate. I heard in Have's reports that they got along."

Heero's head snapped up, his jaw tight. He was in turmoil, and he honestly wasn't sure whether he wanted to find out whether or not his slave, his obedient, loving Luna had ever been friends with Quatre Winner. The mere thought set his blood boiling.

WuFei put a hand on his shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, he went willingly. Never fought me, and actually helped me. But none of that matters if your slave isn't even the one I remember."

Heero took a deep breath, nodding slowly. It had to be done. He had to know.

"The chances of it are pretty small, in all honesty. I had him under the same strict regime as Winner. Food restrictions, warded chains, the whole deal. I stressed that he was never to leave Yarani, ever, so the chances that they deliberately disobeyed me are pretty small. Even Rashid wouldn't go that far."

Heero nodded, steeling himself. "Well, let's go find out," he said.


	19. Your Brains Have Been Bludgeoned

Just wanted to let everyone know I'm not dead. Yet. I won't offer any excuses over the lateness of this chapter, suffice to say that it's late, very late, and I hadn't intended to leave it this long between chapters.

As a reward for your patience, I'm not going to be evil with this chapter and leave you all hanging over what happens at the end of it, like I did to the poor bastards over at gwfanfiction .net . But it's late and I'll post the next chapter tomorrow.

Have fun hating me for this.

* * *

MoonChild

Chapter Nineteen – Your Brains Have Been Bludgeoned From Your Skull

* * *

"MeiRan, it's good to see you again."

MeiRan smiled and attempted a curtsey but promptly tripped on her own feet. Fumbling, she made her way to the King's desk, where both he and WuFei sat in a subdued silence, and dropped the mounds of parchment she carried.

WuFei had his head in his hands, King Heero his fingers massaging his temples. "Here they are," MeiRan said, skipping pleasantries. "Your journals for every brunette child from Kovert Nine and Ten and Bavier One and Two."

MeiRan tapped her foot when she received no answer. WuFei didn't even look at the papers.

"Most of them have sketches from the period when that artist at the docks offered to profile the sorcerers for your journals. I can shuffle through them and find all the pictures, maybe you could find a match from them," MeiRan said.

"That won't be necessary," WuFei said quietly, not removing his head from his hands.

MeiRan huffed. "Have you even looked at him yet?"

WuFei raised his hands, smoothing a few stray hairs back, and fixed his wife with a stony look, then wearily leaned in toward his journals. He sifted through each of them until he found the one he was looking for, on the very bottom of the pile. "Any particular reason, MeiRan, that this one is last?"

MeiRan gave a melodramatic sigh, then grabbed herself a chair and sat gracelessly in a way most unbecoming of a lady. "Well I was pretty damn sure it would be the last one you would be needing," she said, then scowled. "I really hate the way you're always right, especially when it's bad news."

WuFei scanned the familiar pages, refreshing his memory and listening with half an ear. "I would have loved to have been wrong," he said sadly, then spotted something worthy of mention. "Luna fell asleep on Bavier Two, first cycle, twentieth day. Winner fell asleep same year, same cycle, five days earlier-"

"You keep tabs on when Winner goes to _sleep_?" Heero muttered doubtfully.

"Sleep is that state I told you about earlier. Hibernation is probably a better term but there's no point changing the jargon that we've been using for years. Either way, these dates – the two of them spent less than two weeks awake together, so we can probably rule out very much influence from Winner. He might have told him some things, put some ideas in his head, but Winner couldn't have done anything in two weeks more severe than the years he spent before we caught up with him."

"And what about that?" Heero asked, perking up at the mention of Luna's past. "When you met him, he could speak. What did he tell you? What is his name?"

WuFei raised his head from his scripts. "I never said he could _speak_."

Heero pushed his brows together. "And that is supposed to mean _what_, exactly?" he asked irritably.

WuFei shook his head, his eyes telling tales of exhaustion, of bitterness with the world. "He didn't talk, not once," he said quietly. "He'd been mistreated, I think," he said. "Skinnier than a twig, with less life than one too. He was tiny, for his age – the only reason we figured he was nine was because of his teeth and all that hair. He looked six, but there is no way, even for a mage, that a child could grow that much hair in six years. No way." WuFei sighed, staring at his hands before continuing. "It was malnutrition. He'd probably been struggling to eat since birth. But there are children dying of starvation more cheerful than he was. Being poor doesn't account for his behaviour when we found him."

"Behaviour?" Heero echoed.

MeiRan hummed and nodded. "You could practically see in his face all the misery and grief of a thousand widows," she said quietly. "Something bad happened to him. Something bad enough for him to run far, far away. No one in any of the towns nearby had ever seen him before. He wasn't local to where we found him. That wasn't the worst of it though, the worst of it was when you talked to him..." she trailed off, gesturing with her hand, then resting her chin on it.

"Talked?" WuFei said sarcastically. "He wasn't much of a conversationalist."

"He still isn't," Heero said.

"Mmm, but then it was by choice. He could make noise then, he just chose not to."

"Wait," MeiRan said. "He can't now?"

"He's mute," Heero said.

"And his name is Luna," WuFei said. "That's more than we got out of him."

"I didn't get that out of him," Heero said. "I couldn't guess his name, so I call him Luna until I can find a tutor for his letters."

WuFei's dark mood brightened substantially. "Did I just hear something about teaching? And letters?"

"Is that an offer?"

"Everything is an offer when it comes to books," WuFei said, grinning.

Heero offered the older man his hand, and it was taken and shook. WuFei rested back in his chair, smug expression fixed in place. "Farewell ye faithful saddle, hail ye quilted chair cushions. Tell me I get full access to the castle and city libraries," he said, looking down his nose at the King as though telling a dog to give him the stick in its mouth.

Heero smiled. "You already do," he said.

"Tell me I don't have to wear a corset," MeiRan said dismally.

* * *

_To my correspondent Mister Mayne Have,_

_It was with great displeasure that I recently surveyed the King's new slave, acquired on his recent travels to your prison. I knew immediately who the boy was as I had placed him under your care myself._

_I am quite sure that you recall our conversation when I entrusted that boy to you, as nothing short of severe head trauma could cause you to forget the emphasis I gave that he was never to leave your island._

_And yet, here we are, and I am certain that if you take a look into the cell of one Quatre Winner, you will find his cellmate, whom I stressed was never to leave that room, is quite clearly no longer in that room. So, Mayne Have, I am left to decide whether you were unaware of the boy leaving that room, meaning you no longer know everything that happens in your prison, whether you knew, meaning you deliberately disobeyed me, threatened the Crown and are therefore guilty of treason, or whether your brains have been bludgeoned from your skull, leaving you incapable of recalling our aforementioned conversation._

_None of these theories please me in the slightest, however you must know, if you did know about the move, and you are not suffering a cracked skull and memory issues, you will be shortly. Don't worry too much about that, as our good King will have a noose about your neck before that could pose much of a problem._

* * *

There was smoke, there was fire, there was blood everywhere. He couldn't breathe through the blood. Vaguely, he recalled what he had done, and why there was a knife in his heart.

Literally.

The warded blade slid out of him with a squelching sound, then plunged back in. Quatre was too far gone to feel it. He couldn't feel his fingers. Or his toes for that matter. Or anything else.

As though he weren't truly experiencing what he knew was happening, he watched the black eyed Hunter raise the blade again.

How long had he been doing this? A week, an hour, a day? Quatre couldn't remember the sun changing, so it mustn't have been long. Somehow, despite the blade being twisted, he laughed.

He hadn't realised until now just how much power he actually held. Enough power to threaten the capital city. Enough power that without even conscious application, his body could heal a stab through the heart faster than this Hunter could wrench the blade up and plunge it back in again.

He had made a mistake, one very big mistake. He had forgotten west from east. He had let himself go so far that he had forgotten which direction the city lay. And he had put them in danger. He deserved this for that stupid, novice mistake.

But he did not deserve prison. He could never deserve to be locked away underground, away from the sun, and that was where they would take him. He was too weak to fight now, and they would get him there and lock him up, where the sun would no longer sustain him and he would be imprisoned...

All he ever wanted to do was heal injured birds. Where was his crime?

They would make him do his time, that they would ensure. And when he had finished his time, he would commit the crime.

The Royal Family would pay.

Quatre woke up with a start, Rashid at his side. He took a deep breath. First, he would reunite with his second. Then, he would destroy whichever Royal happened to be in charge of the sorcerer decree at the current time. And continue destroying them until one lifted the decree.

Yes. _Duo, I am coming for you, to save you from slavery, though I know you could do so yourself. Then I will thank you properly for aiding me through this time._

* * *

Duo was warm. Somehow he was incredibly, fantastically warm, and comfortable, and for some reason, he felt safe. It was a rather disturbingly unusual way for him to wake up, but as he opened his eyes and blinked the sleep out of them, things became clear.

His master was lying beside him, fully clothed and outside the covers, stroking his hair rhythmically, methodically. His hair was loose, which annoyed him slightly, but it wasn't knotted, which pleased him.

The room was bright, it was about mid-morning. He'd been sleeping for quite a while then. He wrestled his arms out of the covers, stretching, then pulled them back in and curled up, looking up at his master.

Who promptly looked at him with a scowl so ferocious it belonged on a rabid dog.

Luna startled, pulling back a bit, wondering what he'd done wrong, and bit his lip. Heero still glared at him as though he had committed some horrible, unforgivable crime, so he lowered his head and eyes, curling up as small as possible.

Just what exactly had he done wrong? Already? It had barely been two days since he'd made up his mind to do everything right, was he really so pathetic that he couldn't even last a few days without disappointing someone?

Heero let out a huff, falling back from his side to lay flat. "I don't feel well," he muttered gruffly, as though by way of apology.

Seeking redemption, Luna inched toward him slowly, pressing his forehead to the King's arm. Logically thinking, the best thing to do at the moment was be as submissive as possible. And affectionate. He knew his master liked that. He pressed a kiss to Heero's arm, and then retreated.

Luna could feel the Royal's eyes on him, and he shivered. He'd done something very, very wrong. He could tell.

"Chang WuFei came here to see you yesterday." Here it came. He was about to find out what he'd done. But who was Chang Wu-something? Was he supposed to know that?

"He told me who you are. How he caught you," the King continued.

The man in white! The man in white was here? And had come to see him! Was he staying? Would Luna get to see him? It had been forever since he'd seen that huge man, with his big white coats and blades. He couldn't remember how the man in white had caught him. He barely remembered anything from back then. Was that what he had done wrong? The way he had been caught? Had he hurt somebody?

He didn't remember. But something in his master's voice told him the unforgivable sin was yet to be mentioned.

"He told me who he roomed you with."

Ah. There it was. That was the crime that he had committed.

Wait, why was that a crime? He reeled his fragmented memory in, and tried to go back in time to then. He'd been put in prison. He hadn't spoken since ... _it_ happened ... but he started talking again when he met Quatre, and memories stopped being so fuzzy the moment Quatre became involved. He'd woken up from a nightmare about ... _it_ happening ... and he'd been in Quatre's arms. Quatre somehow managed to make him tell him his name, his name at the time anyway. It was Luna now, it had been Duo then, but it was Luna now. He'd said Duo, and then somehow he'd broken down and told Quatre everything, _everything_, even _it_, his life story, who he was. What he was. Then Quatre, who had been just listening, and _crying_ for some weird reason, told him who he was, what he was as a sorcerer, and then it became clear why Quatre had managed to make him talk when no one else had.

They were brothers. They were the commander and his second. They were soldier and squire, master and apprentice. The two Children united. Duo hadn't thought it would ever happen, but there they both were, in the most unlikely of places for the two most powerful beings ever to grace the earth.

Quatre told Duo his life story in return. He was a nobleman's son, the only boy of thirty children. His father had had several concubines, because his family name had a long history of being unable to give male children. Even though his father was a Winner only by marriage, and his family had no issue making baby boys, the moment he became a Winner he entered into the strange phenomenon.

Quatre's mother, Shraaè, his father's wife, not a concubine, had only had one baby before him, his elder sister Irea. Irea's birth had apparently torn his mother up inside, and she didn't bleed again.

When it was clear she would not have any more children, she, who longed for a son, allowed his father a multitude of concubines, all prime stock from fertile families, families that had histories of twins and triplets so as to double their chances of a son per pregnancy. These women produced twenty-eight more daughters for his father until, ten years after Irea's birth, Shraaè fell pregnant again. It was a miracle, an impossible feat, and Quatre was born, healthy, happy and wonderfully _male_. His mother died after spending two days with him and Irea.

Irea told him she died of happiness. Quatre sorely doubted that was possible, but Irea was quite set in her belief that their mother had died with the both of them in her arms, with such a smile that the world became brighter.

Quatre was the first boy to be born for the last hundred years, so naturally, everyone doted on him. He was allowed anything he wanted, his father insisting upon this. He said he wanted Irea to be his playmate, and she was promptly moved to the room next to his own, a space in the wall between their rooms knocked out to make room for a door. Quatre said he wanted an aviary built on the roof of their house, work began the next day.

Quatre maintained throughout his telling of all this that he was indeed a spoiled brat. He had been given everything he could possibly wish for and more, and he sorely missed it. As the days went on in their underground cell, he became more and more bitter, more and more sad, more and more moody. He had been surrounded by family and luxury his entire life, and now both had been ripped from him at the same time.

Quatre came into magic very early, at a very young age. His nurse had seen him heal a dove from the aviary, and had explained to him very seriously that if anyone ever saw him do that again, he would be taken away and never come back. She had told him to suppress it, never do it again, and maybe if he tried hard enough it would go away.

He didn't follow her second piece of advice, but he was very careful never to let anyone see him use magic. It became an obsession, secretly healing animals, but he longed to heal humans. He knew he couldn't, as he grew older he was taught all about how magic was the art of the Devil, and that people would rather die of their illnesses than be healed by what they believed were the hands of the Devil.

Quatre insisted upon being apprenticed to a Healer. Surely there he could help people get better, even if he had to do it without magic.

He was very disappointed. He explained to his cellmate, who had never been under the care of a Healer, exactly how misinformed modern Healing was.

Mortal Healers believed fevers were to be sweated out. Even Duo had known at the time that that was a preposterous notion, likely to harm far more than help. Quatre had explained to him that normal people, mortals, didn't know things the way they did. They didn't know what illnesses were, so they came up with ridiculous theories to try to explain what they didn't understand. Healers spread the word that gut pain was the Lord's punishment for lusting after one's siblings. Illnesses were God's way of culling the unworthy from his good earth. Sneezing was to rid oneself of the Devil's influence. Fevers were the body's way of removing Evil from itself, and Evil caused sickness. The Evil came out in the form of sweat, so naturally, in order to get rid of more Evil, the fevered person should be kept in a sweltering hot room under mounds and mounds of blankets so that they would sweat out all the Evil, and thus, get rid of their sickness.

Duo had known, even then, that sweating that much for a prolonged period of time would simply make one die of dehydration, and when he said that to Quatre, the blonde boy had just nodded sadly. He spent less than a day apprenticed to the Healer. It had been a terrible experience. The hospice was not a place of healing, it was a place of death. One was more likely to die under the 'care' of a Healer than they were if they had jumped off a cliff.

So Quatre had resolved to pass on his knowledge. He knew how the human body worked. He knew how plants and herbs worked. He knew that if he combined aloe with cool water it would create a soothing balm for sunburn. He knew all sorts of things that the so called 'Healers' would think ridiculous. The only problem was that no one would believe him.

So he taught his sister and playmate. She was the only one old enough to take it all in that had not yet been corrupted by the views of the Healers. She absorbed his every word like a sponge, and she slowly began to understand why his treatments worked. They created a small infirmary for birds.

Ever since his first healing of that dove, birds flocked to him. They knew he would care for and heal them, no matter what they were. Eventually he gave Irea full time care of the less seriously injured birds, and when she returned her first charge to the air, he knew he had done well.

They had come for him soon after. He'd just turned fifteen when the Hunters first started lurking around his home. There were more and more of them every day, and he knew they were coming for him.

He was torn. He couldn't bear the thought of prison. His tutors had told him all about Yarani, from the history of the island to the current use of its underground labyrinth. He had no intention of going there. He knew it would kill him. Very few rooms there ever saw the sun, and without the sun, Quatre would die. He had no intention of dying.

So he snuck away in the dead of night, inland. He knew he would have to fight, and fight he did. He'd stopped talking to Duo at that point. Said he didn't like fighting. He said just remembering that fight hurt him. Duo hadn't pressed it. He had figured that Quatre had enough hurting him without Duo poking and prodding at bad memories. He was, after all, dying. It was slow, but every day he woke looking less alive than he had when he had gone to sleep. The sun never crept into their cell. Quatre was going to die, so Duo had offered to help. Quatre had taken his help, reluctantly, and instead of dying, Quatre had fallen asleep one night and wouldn't wake up the next day. Duo had done the same, waking only once a month for a few moments when the moon was full and shining into their cell. Then he'd found himself on a ship in the bed of Royalty.

Luna realised he'd scrunched his eyes shut, and he opened them, blinking. His master stared at him, as though waiting for his reaction, but for all of those memories, Luna just couldn't find one that explained what he had done wrong in Yarani. He'd shared a cell with Quatre. Why exactly was that a bad thing? Quatre had seemed to be a nice person. They'd instantly been friends.

"Quatre Winner, Luna," his master said, slowly.

Luna nodded, looking up at him, trying to beg for an answer with big, uncertain eyes.

"Quatre Winner fought capture like a madman," Heero said, slowly, his voice very controlled, very calm, and Luna found himself feeling that this was the calm before the storm.

"He very nearly destroyed the city," Heero continued, still very cold and calm, but his eyes told many stories of hatred and rage. All directed straight at Luna, who was still trying to digest this brand new information.

Quatre hadn't told him that. Surely Heero was misinformed. Quatre wouldn't have endangered his own _home_. Luna shook his head slowly, mouth open in shock and disbelief.

"If Winner had won that battle, this castle, this city, _everyone here_ would be dead," the King said, his voice starting to quake. The calm was starting to break.

Luna licked his lips, still shaking his head from side to side, not believing what he heard. Not Quatre. Not sweet, innocent Quatre. He started to protest, tried to say that it wasn't possible, it couldn't have been his Quatre, but his voice failed before it reached his mouth.

Not Quatre. He didn't give up his voice to save someone that would do something like that. It couldn't be true. It was impossible! Quatre was the SunChild, he was supposed to be _pure_. He was supposed to be incapable of a sin like that.

"I'm told the two of you were friends in Yarani," Heero muttered.

Numbly, his mind still caught up in what had been said before, Luna nodded.

The calm was over, and the storm was bad. Heero was on him before Luna knew what had happened, and a fist had collided with his jaw before the long haired slave could raise his arms in defence.

The King beat him, holding his head still with a hand on his jaw, giving pressure onto the boy's neck, choking him, while his other hand curled in a fist and smacked his cheek over and over. Luna managed to haul his arms out of the blankets and grabbed feebly at his masters wrist, struggling for breath between the hits and the pressure on his throat.

Heero had his wrists in his hands suddenly, and he could breathe again. He gasped down air as his master pinned his arms above his head with one had, then grabbed his jaw with the other. Luna screamed in pain as Heero's fingers dug into his face where he had been hit repeatedly just moments before. He struggled uselessly, more to try to tell Heero how scared and in pain he was than for anything else.

Heero stayed tense and still as his slave struggled weakly against him. When Luna realised his master wasn't going to choke or hit him again, he managed to force himself to stop, and relaxed his shaking arms. He tried to even out his breathing but he couldn't, and realised it was because he was crying. He hadn't even noticed when it had started.

When Luna was finally still underneath him, submissive again, Heero released his painful grip on the boy's jaw. Luna sobbed.

"You will never speak again for as long as you live. That's an order," Heero said. Luna nodded.

"You will forget all that happened before me. I am your master," Heero said, raising his voice, moving his head closer to the slave's. "I am your master, I am your King, I am all you know and all you care about. That's an order."

Luna nodded, sobbing again. There was something in the King's voice that seemed so strange, so unlike him, and it scared him. He hated it, he hated being afraid like this. He wanted Heero to let go, to leave, to go away so he could curl up into a ball and cry. He wanted his pillow.

"Quatre Winner is past. He is history. You are no longer affiliated with him, and you never will be again. That's an order."

Luna looked around the bed, and spotted it on the King's side. He tried to reach for it but found his wrist still locked in the master's grip. Heero dug his fingers into Luna's bony wrist, tightening his grip in punishment.

"That's an order!" he roared, closing his hand tighter and tighter until Luna nodded, crying still. He loosened his grip almost completely.

"You're mine," he said, quietly, almost a whisper in contrast to his yell moments before. "Mine only. That's an order too," he said, sounding almost affectionate in comparison to his earlier outburst. Luna nodded again, staring over the bed at the black silk pillow.

Heero traced the streak from one of the slave's tears, then presented his hand to Luna's lips. Luna kissed his knuckles immediately, but it was shaky as his entire body quivered.

Heero released the slave, grabbed the pillow and gave it to him. Luna took it and brought it into his chest, burying his head underneath it.

Heero felt a strange sensation as his slave sobbed violently underneath him. In his head, he logically decided he had done something wrong and should be feeling guilt, but when he searched through his heart he found none at all. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out what had made him do what he had done. He also couldn't bring himself to regret it.

He fled the room, but would find no peace away either.


	20. An Eye For An Eye

This chapter is out on time, just like I promised. Surprise!

MoonChild

Chapter Twenty – An Eye For An Eye

(The halfway through mark, I think)

* * *

In Heero's common rooms, he logically assessed the situation. His slave was currently obedient and mute, and he had no desire for that to change. More recently, he was traumatised and afraid of Heero himself, which wasn't exactly how Heero had pictured the relationship developing.

Logically, Heero grasped at straws, trying to figure out what was happening. Luna had spent time with Winner. He couldn't change that, and he hated that fact, but it remained true and for some reason, he really, really wanted to beat the life from Luna for it, despite how he knew that Luna had never had any control over any of it. Luna hadn't elected to go to prison and share a cell with Winner. But he had, and Heero wanted him hung, drawn and quartered for it, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out _why_.

Heero had always believed that his emotions were rock solid, and would always be. They were the one thing he could trust above all else. He knew that no matter what happened, he would love his mother and his sister, and Trowa Barton would always be a brother to him.

The problem was that Luna had been on that list before. Now he was not. His emotions had previously told him that Luna was worthy of a position in his heart, and now they told him rather forcefully that the boy deserved a horrible death under the claws of several mountain lions.

So his emotions were no longer rock solid. As such they were not to be followed blindly.

Heero forcefully shoved away the disturbingly tempting vision of mountain lions. The boy wasn't going to die, not because Heero was angry about something Luna had no control of.

Why were those lions creeping back into his skull? Why did he find the thought of the boy he'd cherished being ripped to shreds so damn fulfilling? It wasn't like him to feel this way.

Surely there was some logic to all this. Surely he was having these ridiculous feelings due to some rage-filled panic attack, because no other explanation made _sense_.

His path of thought went round and round in an endless circle, and Heero was reminded of the snake eating its own tail. Heero took a deep breath, ready to start over, hopefully to figure it out this time, but he got no chance.

His door pounded under the weight of a fist.

"Who died this time?" Heero muttered angrily, stalking to his door and hauling it open, hoping his extremely dark expression would chase away whichever imbecile bothered him now.

He had no such luck. Chang WuFei was one of the few people completely immune to people-slaughtering facial expressions.

"There's been a breach of security," Chang said steadily, the second the door was open. He was in full sorcerer hunting gear, his white tunic stained slightly, in need of another bleaching. "Every single city wall except the South has reported seeing the same sorcerer teleport in. There are two dead guards from North-East. Everyone's already on full alert, the only thing that's left is for you to survey the damage. Everyone who saw anything is waiting for us on the South. The mage might show up, so suit up."

With that disturbing news, WuFei turned on his heel and left Heero to mull all this over. Trowa came stalking down the hall before Heero could even begin.

"You've heard, I'm presuming?" Barton asked.

Heero nodded. Barton stepped into the room, crossing it quickly with his ridiculously long strides. He opened the two chests containing Heero's armour and weapons. "I'll help you with all this before you go," he said in a calm, neutral voice.

Heero rested against the wall by the door. "'You'?" he repeated. "Before _we_ go, don't you mean?"

Trowa paused in the unpacking of Heero's chainmail. "I'm not coming," he said as though it were common knowledge.

"You're not?" Heero asked.

"No," Trowa replied. "At least I assumed I wasn't. I just made an educated guess, going on my knowledge of the way your head works, that you'd want me here to protect Luna."

Heero almost fell over, and it was only the wall at his back that kept him from doing so.

"After all," Trowa continued, "There's a sorcerer out there that can teleport, and has been doing so all night, so it stands to reason that he could just teleport straight in here."

Heero wondered just when exactly Trowa had learnt to read him so well. That was exactly the conclusion he would have come to before ... this.

Heero put his head in his hands. How would he feel if he took Trowa with him, and came back to find Luna dying in a pool of his own blood?

The image came into his head and Heero found himself feeling sick, and it wasn't because of the picture. It was because of the way his heart simply _leapt_ with joy at the prospect.

"Stay with him," he commanded to his second. "If he dies, you will."

There was no way on this green earth that he would allow himself to feel that good because of the suffering of a completely innocent human being.

But damn, the thought of Luna and blood and pain made him feel so good inside.

* * *

When the door opened, Luna actually feared it would be his master. It was the first time he'd ever felt such dread curling in knots around his stomach in response to the thought of Heero, and that made him feel even worse.

"Wow," came a familiar voice, but not his master's. "You look terrible."

Luna dried his eyes, stared at Trowa Barton, then jerked back in shock. Barton wore full plate armour and had several weapons ready to be drawn. Was he here to take him away? Had his master decided not to keep him? Worse still, was he here to continue the punishment his master had started?

Trowa gave him a small smile. "The King didn't seem to be himself just now. Did something happen?"

Lord Barton sat on the bed, and gently turned Luna's head so he could study the red marks that would soon become bruises. Luna turned away, fighting off tears again, and Trowa heaved a sigh, then edged closer and put an arm around his friend's slave, awkwardly holding him, and then the taller man sprang to his feet. "We'll be spending some time together today. There's been an incident on the city walls, so here I am," Barton said, giving a low, flourishing bow. "Trowa Barton, ex-sorcerer Hunter, here to protect you, and please ignore the irony in that," Trowa said, with all the flourishes and courtesies of a circus performer.

Luna allowed himself a small laugh but it swiftly became a choked sob. Trowa smiled woefully and set about finding his charge some clothes. He wasn't going to sit in this bedroom all day. Perhaps they'd play checkers on the commons' balcony.

So it was that Trowa and Luna sat at the King's table, Trowa carefully explaining the rules of a board game he had never before believed someone couldn't know.

It was checkers, for heaven's sakes. Chess he could understand, chess was complicated, but checkers?

He could tell immediately that Luna was a street rat. The way he sat, small and hoping not to be noticed. The way when he was noticed he was wary until he was sure it was a good kind of noticed.

The way he immediately beat him at checkers.

Luna was a deep, strange phenomenon, Trowa very quickly determined. He would slowly come out of his shell, smiling more and more, showing more of the street rat qualities Trowa was sure he had, and then suddenly, he would seem to realise what he was doing and hurl himself back in check, becoming quiet and subdued and incredibly, unbelievably submissive. Trowa wondered exactly what Heero had _done_ to create such a creature. Street rats tended to fight even harder the more they were hit, so Trowa deduced that it couldn't be anything related to the bruises. Heero tended not to hit people anyway, most of the time.

They moved into the common rooms when Luna became tired, or rather, Trowa picked him up and moved the both of them. For curiosity's sake, Trowa had taken a look at his ankles, after repeated assurances that the King wouldn't mind (he didn't really know that, he was just one of those people that took far too many liberties), and come to the conclusion that those thin little ankles most likely weren't going to support the boy.

He wondered when exactly the King was going to start rehabilitation for that. The only way he'd walk again was if he tried, and the longer they left it the harder it would be.

Luna fell asleep on Heero's lounge and Trowa settled in to read a book, a talent he prided himself on monumentally. Eventually, the slave started twitching and quivering in his sleep, and Trowa found himself itching to test out his street rat theory.

He had no knowledge of anything before he met the King. They knew by his clothes and blades that he'd been a Hunter, but they knew little to nothing else, except that, as his little blonde friend had accurately said, 'Somebody really didn't like him', which was proven true by his current lack of depth perception.

Every now and then he realised that he knew something with absolute certainty, something that he hadn't been taught under the hospitality of Heero Yuy. For example, he knew exactly where to rub to calm down a pregnant house cat. He knew how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble his crossbow.

And he knew how to tell a street rat from something else.

Quietly, slowly, without a single sound, he knelt by the sleeping slave. Brushing aside his hood and hair, Trowa felt for the spot, just behind the boy's jawbone, just below his ear.

Luna calmed almost immediately as Trowa applied pressure. The slave went into peaceful, deep sleep.

It was an almost universal gesture between those on the street and the especially poor. It was a calling card, it was a sign of care, it was a calming touch. Trowa knew all this, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out _how_.

He sat back on his heels to contemplate this, but he didn't get the chance.

There was a sound coming from the balcony. Trowa wheeled into a fighter's crouch, placing himself between Luna and the threat.

He saw green circles on the balcony floor, and stiffened. He had no idea how he knew what they were, but he did, and he was glad he did. There were two already down. He had about three seconds before the teleportation was complete.

_One_.

The third circle crashed onto the ground, creating a loud thumping sound. It seemed as though it had been hurled from the heavens by God himself. Swirls, ancient, indecipherable runes appeared inside of it. Trowa had read enough about these to know that the next two would create the shape of a pentagon, and the sorcerer would appear in the very centre, after all five circles raised from the earth.

He aimed his knives.

_Two_.

Luna rustled awake beside him, the sounds waking him. "Down!" Trowa hissed.

_Three_.

All five circles, bright green and ethereal, raised into the air, leaving the runes in their centres behind. As they rose, they left in their wake trails of patterns, all in an ethereal green several shades lighter than the colour of Trowa's eye.

Finally, the sorcerer appeared. He was as tall as Trowa, with hair the colour of gold, and probably the worth of it too if he could find the right wigmaker.

Trowa's runed knives were in the man's chest before the teleportation pillars had faded completely, but the man didn't fall down, nor gasp in pain. Luna's breath hitched, worried. The man obviously had pain wards in place, and they were strong enough to cover a knife in the chest. Things were not looking good.

The mage raised a hand when he spotted Trowa, and flicked his fingers out, as though shooing him away like he was a troublesome child.

Trowa had enough time to feel insulted before the spell hit him and he was rammed backwards into the wall by the door. He recovered reasonably quickly, but as he reached for his other knives, he realised they were gone.

Not gone, he saw as he looked up, but in a neat little pile where he had just been standing, along with all his other weapons, with the exception of the three runed throwing knives he had hurled into the sorcerer but a few moments earlier. Those were being slowly, methodically picked from the mage's chest, the wounds snapping closed with a wave of the man's hands. Trowa was vaguely impressed. He could _heal_. Only the best sorcerers could heal. And do it after teleporting? Practically impossible.

The mage, a surprisingly good looking man, then had Trowa's knives levitating in the air, as he smiled rather gleefully. "An eye for an eye," he said, leaving Trowa to contemplate the sheer irony in that statement as his own knives found their respective ways into his stomach.

He slid down the wall, wondering if it was likely he would survive such an attack, and then the pain settled in, and he realised there was no way.

There was a crash as Luna attempted to run to him but promptly collapsed on the floor. Trowa's vision started to swim in and out of focus.

He could hear Luna trying to crawl to him, hear his uneven, stressed breaths.

He could hear the mage sighing dramatically, then speaking again.

"Oh relax," he said. Trowa heard his boots against the floor as he moved closer. "I'm not going to let him _die_. I might need him."

There was something blue on his stomach, and his sight returned slowly, the mage holding a healing hand over his wounds.

"Better not heal it too much," the blonde mumbled. "Can't have you interfering."

The sorcerer looked up, hearing the door bang against its frame as the Doorguard knocked. "Everything alright, Barton?" one yelled.

"Can't have that either," the blonde man said, and suddenly, there were several wooden boards over the door. "Just to slow them down," the mage said cheerfully, a big grin on his face. Patting Trowa on his not-completely-healed stomach, causing him to cough up blood and almost scream in pain, the blonde burst into laughter. "Oh, I can't believe I'm getting _paid_ for this," he said merrily, then moved his gaze to Luna.

Who decided he had had enough excitement for one day and began to crawl backward, eventually pressing his back against the leg of Heero's lounge. The blonde mage was on him before he had a chance to navigate around the furniture, one hand in his shirt and the other pulling away his hood.

"My, you are pretty," the blonde muttered.

Testing his boundaries, Luna felt for the man's aura. _White_. Fuck! What was an Elder doing here?

Luna felt a push for his own aura, but he kept it hidden. It just wouldn't do for this man to know who and what he was.

"Fine, hide from me," the blonde said, feigning hurt. "It doesn't matter either way."

Luna decided to face the music, opening his mouth to ask what the hell this man wanted, what the hell an Elder wanted from him, but nothing came.

"So you are mute," the Elder said, tracing calloused fingers down his cheek and onto his neck. "I can help you with that," he continued, feeling the leech almost immediately. That speed showed exactly what kind of difference there was between this man and those that mortality knew. Tsu was high in power according to mortals and Hunters, but this man could sense something in a second that had taken Tsu almost an hour. "But not yet. My employer wants you here. There's something of interest to us here in this castle. We think the King has it. You help, we let you live, and maybe I'll even let you ... upgrade from your current master to me."

Luna breathed heavily, trying to process the new information. Something in the castle? Something good enough to interest an Elder and his colleague? What on earth could it be?

More importantly, and far more pressingly, he'd just been propositioned by a very big, very powerful, very sadistic, very blonde mage.

He could handle the first three, but he just wasn't into the whole blonde hair thing. He let himself pretend that was the reason he wasn't interested while he shook his head.

The mage raised one blonde brow. "You'd rather die?" he said, almost mournfully.

Luna bit his lip, then nodded.

His blonde captor sighed. "Such a waste," he said.

There was a pounding on the door, louder than before, then the King's voice, muffled by the boards.

"Right on time," muttered the Elder. "Right," he said again, standing up. "Let's heal up Barton and get this show going."

Luna found himself on the lounge again, his head swimming from the fast movement, as the intruder stood by Trowa, directing a levitation spell with the fingers of his right hand while his left healed Trowa's three stab wounds.

Much as it pained Luna to admit it, the mage did a very good job, leaving not even a scar.

Trowa was then in the air, and Luna could feel that a binding charm was in place, and a pretty good one. Trowa had no control over his arms, legs, or even neck.

Trowa was then on top of him on the King's lounge. Luna shrieked, quite annoyed when he realised he'd made no sound, then tried to move away from the dazed man, but before he'd managed to squirm an inch, the binding charm was on him too.

Then the mage had the gall to start ... arranging them. One of Luna's legs found its way over the back of the lounge, the other hooking around Trowa's hips as Trowa's weight settled between his legs. His arms held onto Trowa's shoulders and Trowa's hand was in his hair.

Luna wanted to crawl into a small hole in the ground and die.

"I get it," Trowa said suddenly. "You want _him_ to kill us both."

"Best friend and lover in one," the mage agreed.

"It won't work," Trowa said around mouthfuls of Luna's hair, as the blonde tried to find a suitable position to stick Trowa's head. "Heero isn't like that."

"I think I know pretty darn well what people under a good head charm are and aren't like," the blonde drawled, finally settling with Trowa and Luna's foreheads together. "There," he said happily. "Now you get to stare into each other's eyes as you die!"

He clapped his hands together, like a six foot high child allowed his favourite treat. Five seconds later he was gone, leaving only five wisps of green pattern, which slowly faded.

"Head charm?" Trowa asked. "Is that why...?" He stared pointedly at Luna's cheek.

Luna, meanwhile, was deep in thought, his brows furrowed. Eventually he nodded. It was entirely possible that some form of magic had a place in the morning's events.

Trowa was surprisingly calm, considering he thought he was about to get run through by his best friend. "When I said 'Heero isn't like that', I was bluffing, a little," he said, clenching his jaw, one of the few parts of his body he had the power to clench. "If Heero saw us like this, he'd be likely to run us both through, no questions asked, and that's _without_ some spell in his head."

Trowa met Luna's eyes. "We're going to die," he said simply.

Heero's enraged screaming as the door shuddered affirmed his words. He'd returned from his inspection already. The mage must have timed his entry to coincide with Heero's return.

Trowa tried to glance at the door, but his position did not allow it and he couldn't move his neck. "He sounds like an animal," Trowa murmured.

Luna tried very hard to think through the pounding on the door. Sooner or later someone would manage to yank it off its hinges and then they'd just have to smash through those boards, whereupon Heero would spot them and that would be the end of it all. The only option he had was to use magic, but that would be disobeying the master he'd sworn obedience to. Sure, he hadn't used words, so disobedience now wouldn't make him a _liar_ – wait, why did he care about lies? Fuck Duo Maxwell's belief. He wasn't Duo anymore, he never wanted to be again. Screw Duo Maxwell.

That still left him with the problem of what to do as Luna. He couldn't disobey Heero. Using magic would be the _ultimate_ betrayal now. He couldn't do that. Heero would hate him – but Heero would hate him anyway the second he saw this.

He was far too weak to teleport Trowa and himself out of here. There was no chance he'd be able to summon, and even if he could, what would the beast be able to do? The most Luna could do would be to disable the binding charm, which would probably have him pass out, bleeding from his bands, whereupon the King would just run him through.

But Trowa would live. At least the King would get to keep one companion after this hell of a day. And Heero hated him now anyway, what would it matter if Luna disobeyed him? He'd just end up hating him a little bit more, but that was a sacrifice Luna was willing to make if it let Heero keep his best friend.

There was the sound of wood splitting. Someone had found an axe. They were cutting through the door.

Luna met Trowa's eyes, trying to think of a way to tell him what he was going to do, but the axe was in the door again. "What is it?" Trowa asked, finally losing his calm. "What is it?"

With wide eyes, Luna tried to summon his most apologetic look.

It seemed to take him forever to disable the bind. Normally such a spell would melt under his fingertips, but his current situation was not normal. Almost every bit of his power was being force-fed to Quatre, and the rest to healing his body. There was just no more left for little tricks like unbinding a binding charm, and that was without taking into consideration his Yarani bands. Eventually, Trowa was rolling away from him, picking up his runed blades and pointing them at him.

His leg was falling off the back of the lounge. His sleeves felt wet. He was exhausted, and he had been before he'd done the spell, but this exhaustion was just too much. He let himself fall asleep, the pull was far too strong to resist, and he fully expected never to wake up again.

* * *

When Heero rammed himself into some boards covering his own god-damned door (how the hell had his door become boarded up? He didn't just keep wood hanging around in his rooms), he was pretty damn sure he was madder than any human had any right to be. He wanted to kill something so badly it hurt. His knuckles had gone beyond white from his grip on his sword, they were now an odd purplish lilac colour.

The boards fell apart beneath his plate armoured weight, leaving him to see his commons. Empty. He moved toward his bedroom door as fast as his Official Royal plate armour would allow.

Barton appeared, coming through the door. His shirt was stained with massive amounts of blood but he didn't appear to be bleeding or hurt in any way at all, with the exception of his ghost-white face. Upon spotting Heero, he placed his back against the door, staring at the King as though he were some kind of ultimate saviour.

Although Heero did fit the picture, with his shining, unstained armour, sword drawn and eyes fit to kill, he certainly didn't feel like some romanticised knight come to save the day. He felt like someone who had just been trailing all over the city walls waiting for a mage that didn't show up, then denied entry to his own rooms, who had been angry even before that event, and now just really wanted to ram someone's head into a spiky rock formation.

"Barton," he managed to grit out. "Where is Luna? What happened?" He was tempted to just grab his friend and throw him out of his way so he could check the bedroom himself.

"Luna's fine," Barton said quickly, seeming to flare to life from his daze. "Exhausted, but fine."

Heero stepped closer, pointedly placing his hand on the door his second stood in front of.

Barton stared at Heero for a few moments, seeming to be trying to look into Heero's mind. Heero snarled and grabbed him by the shoulder to move him away from the door, but his second had the advantage of weight and leverage, and he didn't budge.

"I can't let you go in there," Trowa said steadily.

Heero took a swing at him, landing a blow on his friend's jaw. Trowa didn't budge. "And you think you can stop me?" Heero yelled.

Trowa looked stoically forward. WuFei was stepping into the room now, casting a curious glare at the two. "Now isn't a time to be fighting," he said. "Where's Luna?"

Heero grabbed Trowa's long, thin neck in one hand. "That's what I'd like to know," he snarled. It suddenly became painfully obvious to him that he could snap that neck incredibly easily.

"Luna's behind this door, passed out in your bed," Trowa said, sparing Heero a glance. "But I can't let you through here."

Heero said nothing, but the way his hand quivered around Trowa's neck told everything.

"That's a bit much, don't you think, Barton?" WuFei muttered, picking his way through the room. He raised his head, sniffing pointedly at the air. "He was in here. The mage."

Trowa nodded. "Luna saved my life," he said, looking his King in the eye. "If you go in there, the very first thing you're going to do is kill him. I now owe him a blood debt," Trowa said, speaking quickly.

"Why would I kill my own slave?" Heero hissed. "Unless he's done something _wrong_..." His grip tightened on Trowa's throat.

"You kill him, you have to kill me first," Trowa wheezed. "And when you kill both of us, the bastard wins."

Heero immediately loosed his hand, finally hearing terms that got through to him even in his frenzied state. "What did he want?" he asked.

Trowa coughed, but held his place firmly in front of Heero's bedroom door. "Luna, at first. He wanted him to betray you. Spy. Something about an item in the castle they wanted."

Heero furrowed his brow. "That makes no sense. We're poor. There's nothing valuable here."

Trowa shrugged. "You'll be happy to know Luna refused," he said. "Immediately."

Heero felt his hand becoming weak around his friend's throat. Refused? After what he'd done to him that morning?

"Which I personally don't understand one bit," Trowa said lowly. "Considering how distraught he was when I first saw him today."

Heero tensed his hand. He hated it when people said things that he knew were true but didn't want to admit to.

"Mage then decided for the second plan," Trowa went on, ignoring the scathing look from his King. He laughed without mirth. "Plan B," he said. "Make the King kill two people he cares about in one shot."

Heero snarled again, pushing with all his weight onto Trowa's throat. "Nobody but me can make me do anything!" he said forcefully.

Trowa managed to scowl despite the pressure on his windpipe. "Really?" he asked weakly, so quietly Heero could barely hear it. "Does that mean that you're the one responsible for beating a sick, defenceless creature to tears just this morning?"

Heero slowly released his grip and pressure, saying nothing as Trowa coughed with a hand on his door to keep himself steady. Eventually, the man looked up again. "Does that mean you would do that sort of thing all on your own?" Trowa let out a dry laugh. "Because if it does, go ahead and barge into that room. Go ahead and kill me and Luna both, because to be entirely honest, if my only friend in the world is the kind of _bastard_ that beats someone that can't fight back for a crime that they had no control over, then I'd really like to die."

Pale as a bleached sheet, Trowa let out a hysterical laugh that turned into an almost sob. "Tell me that bastard was telling the truth when he said he'd put a charm in your head. Tell me you're not like that. I don't even care if it's a lie right now, I just want to hear it."

Neither Trowa or WuFei could read Heero as he stayed stock still and silent for almost a minute, thinking. They presumed he was thinking, anyway, as they couldn't really tell what was happening in his head, if anything at all. Heero had been short tempered and rude for most of the day, WuFei had been tempted to deck him, probably due to some unfulfilled paternal instinct. Heero glanced at WuFei, his eyes kind of wild, as though looking to him for either denial or confirmation. WuFei looked at Barton, who knew Yuy better than he did. If Barton thought Yuy was acting un-Yuy-ish, then WuFei wasn't exactly going to contradict him. He thought Yuy wasn't acting normal too, and he barely knew the brat.

Heero spoke very softly, as though he were doing it just to prove he could. "Barton, stay here with Luna. I'm going to spend the night in Irea's infirmary. I have a splitting headache."

He stayed still for a bit longer, before grimacing slightly and speaking again. "On the chance that I have been ... cursed, I'm going to have a sleep root when I get down there. Hopefully when I wake up I will be able to think this all through." He took a deep breath, then levelled a glare at Trowa. "I'm pretty sure I know what he did to save your life, and I don't like it. Don't talk to me about it until I've woken from that root. Hopefully the time and the sleep will cure me of any charm I may or may not have, and I will make my decisions then. Chang," he said, moving his eyes from Trowa to WuFei. "You will accompany me to the Healer's and watch me. Prevent me from turning back should I change my mind. When I am asleep you will help Barton treat Luna."

Trowa's nod proved to Heero that Luna was indeed in need of treatment, and he was pretty sure he knew where and what and he didn't like it even slightly.

He and WuFei took their leave. Heero managed to keep himself and his raging desire to turn back and throw both his second and his slave onto the nearest funeral pyre in check, and he fell asleep in Irea's rooms.

WuFei smirked smugly when Heero was asleep, and didn't stop until he reached the King's rooms again.

After all, there wasn't a spell in the world that could tackle the skull of Heero Yuy and not come out crying and wetting itself. 


	21. My Darling Cripple

MoonChild

Chapter Twenty One – My Darling Cripple

* * *

He felt guilty the second he woke up. He felt like he'd done something absolutely terrible to a poor, defenceless being. Like he'd kicked a newborn puppy, then raped it. Then the memories made their way in.

He _had_ done something terrible to a poor, defenceless being. Five something terribles. He'd hit Luna. Five times. Where exactly was he?

Irea's room was brighter than he remembered. Extremely bright. And his head hurt, but it was nothing in comparison to his shoulders.

"I knew there was something wrong," someone was saying. Heero couldn't tell who it was, all he knew was that they were yelling and Irea's room seemed to have been relocated to the center of the sun.

Everything was bright.

"I could sense it," the person said. "I just couldn't tell what it was."

Heero moved his head to the side, seeing that the person speaking was Tsu.

Bastard. Heero wanted to hack him up into little pieces.

Heero felt slightly remorseful for thinking that, until he realised what he had just felt. Remorse.

And guilt. Thank the heavens, he could feel guilty again.

And he wasn't mad at Luna anymore. Granted, he'd done enough of that the day before to last a lifetime, but it felt so good to _like_ Luna again.

"Why am I here?" he asked quietly.

Irea was touching his shoulders and he tensed. "Don't do that," she yelled.

"Don't yell at me," Heero said.

The entire room went suddenly, blissfully silent.

"I wasn't yelling," Irea said.

"It sounded like it," Heero said.

"That's the headache."

"How did you know I had a headache?" Heero said, closing his eyes. The room was so bright it seemed impossible.

Irea patted his shoulders. "When someone is this tense, they normally get a headache sooner or later."

Heero grunted as he forced himself to sit up and put a hand over his eyes. "I'm always tense," he muttered.

"Not like this," Irea said. "I managed to work most of it out of you while you were sleeping, but you were more riled up than a donkey with a hot poker up it's arse."

"It was the spell," Tsu said.

"Spell?" Heero snarled.

Tsu shrank back. "Lord Barton said the sorcerer said he put a spell on you, in your head."

Heero grunted. Right. The spell. Tsu seemed pretty convinced it really had been there, and Heero was just a little unnerved by the mere thought that someone had been fiddling around inside his brain.

Heero took a deep breath. There was only one way to tell whether or not there _had_ really been a spell on him. He straightened his back, where Irea was still touching, massaging, he squared his shoulders, took another deep breath, and imagined Luna hanging by his hair in the castle dungeons, his eyes gouged out and his tongue lying on the stone floor.

Heero promptly hurled all over Irea's carpet.

"Be careful," Irea said quietly, stroking his messy hair away from his face. "The really bad headaches can make you sick. Don't move too quickly. Lie down again."

Heero nearly laughed as he shrugged her off. His head throbbed every time he blinked or even breathed, but the only thing on his mind was that he wasn't mad any more.

He didn't even actually mind that much. So Luna had roomed with Winner. WuFei said they'd spent about two weeks conscious together in all their years as cellmates – and Heero had spent longer than that with Luna. Now that he could finally view the situation without his mind going around in circles, he felt so much better, even though just thinking at all made his head feel as though someone had attached a boulder to it and made him run a marathon.

He took a few deep breaths, letting Irea's hands dig into his shoulders and neck and relax him. After a while, when a servant had cleaned yesterday's lunch from the floor, he actually felt better.

As soon as his stomach felt still enough to handle the walk up stairs to his own rooms, Heero stilled Irea's hands. "I'm going to sleep this off in my own rooms," he said.

Irea flinched. "Are you sure?"

Heero could tell that it wasn't him she was worried about. "Yes," he said, standing up.

"Lord Barton's waiting in your rooms for you. He wants to tell you what happened."

"Good," Heero said agreeably, then stared at Tsu, who stood humbly by the wall, head down. Heero smiled at him, and Svelte flinched like he'd been hit. "Give my sister a hug for me," he ordered. Tsu's eyes widened and Heero grinned shamelessly. "I'm all out of anger. There's just none left," he said, smiling, with one hand rubbing his temple, his brows showing how much his head hurt, but the curve of his lips said that he was just ridiculously, deliriously happy that yesterday was over.

* * *

When Luna woke, he was on his side, his hands tied very tightly and securely in the prayer position. There were pressure bandages just above his bands, preventing the wounds from leaking much blood, as they couldn't exactly wrap a bandage over the bands or underneath them. He felt week and woozy from loss of blood, and mighty confused as well. He was supposed to be dead, wasn't he?

None of that was what scared him. What scared him was the body at his back.

It curled around him so tightly and perfectly that Luna knew immediately it was Heero. He tensed and tried to curl up further.

"Don't do that," his master said in the voice of the mostly asleep, then moved the hand that had been holding Luna to him to his shoulder, rubbing it softly until Luna relaxed. It was hard, but he managed to make himself do it, slowly forcing his tensed muscles to untense, whereupon they just quivered.

Heero's hand left his shoulder and made its way back around his body, resting on Luna's stomach. Luna wanted to move, to roll over and see if Heero was the way he had been before, whether he was mad, but he stopped himself from moving. If his master was mad, moving would just make him madder.

Luna felt him take in a deep breath of air through his nose, which was buried in his hair, then he released it and Luna felt his master's lips curve in a smile against his head.

Thank the Moon. He wasn't mad anymore. Luna let out a long breath of his own, and gathered up the courage to crane his neck around, trying to see his master behind him.

Heero met his eyes for not even a second before he looked away, biting his lip. When he looked back, he refused to look his slave in the eye, but it wasn't from anger.

He placed his hand on Luna's left cheek, covering up the bruise there that clashed madly with his eyes, then buried his head in the boy's neck. "Trowa spoke to me. I won't punish you for using magic," he said quietly. "Not this time, not under those circumstances." He placed a lingering kiss to Luna's throat, which was also bruised. "And I think I gave you enough punishment yesterday."

Luna let out another long, rattled breath, feeling his body start to relax properly. Heero hadn't actually _apologized_ for it, and hadn't said it was wrong, but Luna honestly didn't care at that stage. He was just glad to be back in his master's good esteem, as he'd been so worried he never would be again.

Smiling, and holding back a sob of relief, he rolled over. Heero pulled back slightly, apprehensive, but Luna just curled up impossibly tight and nuzzled his head into his master's chest, placing a light kiss there before closing his eyes and relaxing again. He made no move with his hands, understanding the need for them to be bound together.

At that point in time, he didn't care if his master never untied them, he was just glad yesterday was over. Then Heero's arms were circling around his shoulders and a hand was stroking his hair, and everything felt so good. He just wanted so much to rest, to go to sleep in his master's arms and and preferably wake up there too.

He woke up only a little bit when Heero untied his hands, but when Heero rubbed something cool and soothing into the rope burns, he just smiled and fell into oblivion once more.

Heero didn't apologize for hitting his slave. Luna didn't really mind. When he had decided to do this, he had been prepared for beatings and hurt. He'd hoped not to get hurt, but he had expected to. While Luna figured that his master didn't apologize because he hadn't actually done anything wrong, beating a slave was perfectly legal and acceptable, he didn't actually know the real reason he didn't receive an apology.

It was because Heero was scared he wouldn't be forgiven.

* * *

The clearing was bright and sunny, there were birds singing, and small yellow flowers had popped up from the ground amidst the green grass.

Then two separate teleportation pentagons appeared, and two men stared daggers at each other. The happy atmosphere abruptly burst into flame and shrivelled to ashes.

One of them held a cane in one arm, resting heavily on it. "I woke up this morning and I heard nothing. I was so annoyed I stubbed my toe on my dresser. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to ram a perpetually burnt toe into the corner of a piece of furniture?"

The other mage, the dusty blonde haired one, sighed. "It's not my fault you're clumsy," he drawled.

"I didn't pay you in advance," the raven haired man yelled, "So that you could effectively change _nothing_!"

The blonde sighed again. "Relax. I'll get the job done. You did pay me already," he said with honor unexpected for a member of the Assassin's Guild. "And it's personal now. Not only did Yuy manage to suffer through my charm without killing _a single person_, his damned slave had the gall to _refuse_ me! To my face!"

The employer muttered something unintelligible, which the employee suspected was something along the lines of 'I don't blame him', to which he snarled.

"They know me now. They know we're after something. They're not likely to leave the slave unprotected for quite some time. There's also the possibility he removed my binding spell, which could have been what saved himself and Barton. If that happened now, while the brat's weak, and _young_, then when he gets stronger he might actually be able to defend himself from us. I think we need a change of plan. Forget the slave. Go after the sister."

The employer tapped his cane on the ground. "Not good. The sister keeps a sorcerer too, rumours have it that he's powerful too. And he's not impaired the way Yuy's is."

The blonde laughed. "Powerful under whose scale? Yuy's? Mortal men judge him powerful. All we need to know is that he was weak enough to get caught. And weak enough to stay in slavery, for Deathscythe's sakes. He's easily taken care of."

The employer tapped his cane on the ground again, thinking. "If you're willing to take the risk," he said, nodding.

The assassin laughed. "Risk? What risk? But if you're worried about me," his voice suddenly changed tone, becoming strangely affectionate. "You could come along. I promise I'll keep you safe, my darling cripple."

Ignoring the jibe, the other man shook his head. "I don't want to get personally involved yet," he said.

The employee laughed. "Let me tempt you," he said. "She's unmarried, sick and feeble," he said, feigning pity in his voice, then snapping back with a crude grin. "I can guarantee she's never had a lover in her life, and I promise I'll let you have the first go."

The cane faltered in its now rhythmic tapping on the soft earth, then started up again, faster. "We leave no one alive. I want Yuy to stew in the mystery of not knowing who's responsible."

The blonde raised a brow. "Why, will someone recognize you?"

The dark haired man laughed, a short, barking sound. "Maybe not personally, but if anyone sees my leg, they'll all know who I am."

The blonde furrowed his brow. "It's not like me to particularly _care_ what the grudge is between my employer and my victim, but if you'd care to explain?"

The other man barked again, grabbing his cane and shoving it into the ground. "I killed his mother," he said simply, gesturing at his leg. "And this is what I got for it. Some shmuck sorcerer, fresh out of prison, decides to try to magefire burn my leg off. Only reason I still have the leg is because I hit water immediately."

The blonde nodded slowly, the wheels turning. "I didn't put two and two together," he said, staring at the employer's leg. "I'd thought that was a curse or something, I never expected it to be a _magefire burn_... You must be in agony." In a rare display, the blonde showed a sign of pity, an expression of humility. "Is that why we're killing them off first, and not just going straight for the item? You want Yuy to see you with that limp, so he knows you?"

The man nodded. "Once Yuy's dead, Karen Miya's practically up for grabs. The Princess ain't going to run it," he said, then paused and added, "Especially not if she's dead. It'll be a quick take, kill Yuy and all heirs – not that there are many – take his crown and set anyone that tries to take it from me on fire. They'll learn pretty quickly."

The blonde stared at him with an odd expression. "You don't strike me as a King," he said carefully.

"And that's supposed to mean what?" the other snarled. "I shouldn't have to remind you who's in charge here."

The dark skinned blonde raised his hands in defence, and then shrugged. "I never said you _couldn't_ be a King. I just didn't think that was your aim."

The black haired mage let his hackles drop and he chuckled. "You're a good reader," he said. "I don't give a shit for Karen Miya. All I want is a few days free reign in the castle."

The blonde smirked. "Ahh, and it all makes sense. You get the castle, you get to find _it_."

The cane dropped to the ground again, resuming a fast beat. "The only thing that can heal a magefire burn this big is a Child," he said, grinning.

His blonde friend smirked again. "And when you find it, you'll have two."

* * *

Trowa slipped into the room, holding his secret very close to his chest in a small jewelled box. Luna was sleeping peacefully, curled up under Heero's covers.

No one had ever been able to figure out why Luna never woke up when people entered, only when he was touched, shook or spoken to. WuFei said that it was to do with magic and trust - the magic sensed who was there, and if there was no trust in that person, then the magic allowed the mage's senses to wake them up. If there was trust, then the magic blocked the senses in favor of rest.

WuFei made alot of observations that made sense, but none of what he said was confirmable. He had hunches on why mages did things or what magic was, and often enough they were correct, but no mage would ever risk burning in Hell for telling him that.

Trowa knelt by the bed, opening up the box, taking a long look at the ring inside. Heero had measured the slave's ring finger while the boy was sleeping, and had found this ring in the treasury himself, so Trowa knew it would fit.

_Left hand, left hand,_ he thought to himself, folding the blankets back and carefully uncurling Luna's left hand from the fist it made in the sheets.

He slid the ring on, nodding to himself. The diamonds did go well with the boy's skin. Trowa wondered how many more presents he would be delivering.

"Luna," he called softly. "Wake up."

Luna stirred and opened his eyes, blinking and shrinking back from Trowa's close proximity. Trowa smiled, reaching out to hold Luna's slim fingers with his own.

The ring sparkled in the light and Luna saw it, gasped, and tried to bring his hand up to study it, but Trowa wouldn't let go.

"Did you know," Trowa began, "That slaves, like yourself, aren't allowed to wear rings?"

Luna blinked, looking at the ring again, as though wondering whether he should try to take it off, but Trowa still had his hand.

"Slaves are never supposed to take the place of a wife or a lover," Trowa said matter of factly. "And those are the ones who are supposed to wear rings, as symbols of marriage or engagement or memories."

Trowa brought Luna's hand to his lips and kissed the ring lightly. "So understand, my good friend, that this gift from your master is extremely special, but also extremely secret. If anyone sees you wearing a ring unattached to a slave bracelet, it will reflect very badly on him."

With that, he released Luna's hand, so that the boy could study his new possession. As he held it up to the light and saw it properly, three small diamonds fitted into a thick silver band, he smiled, brighter than the diamonds.

Trowa smirked. This slave responded _extremely_ well to gifts, which was good, because Heero seemed to have raided the treasury that morning.

Over the next four days, Luna received gifts from his master, which he made sure to be wearing when the master returned for the night.

He was especially grateful for a set of silk ribbons in every color imaginable, which were incredibly long and obviously meant to be cut to size, but Luna ignored the blade given to him and weaved the full length of the black ribbon into his hair in a braid, using the ends to tie it off. He felt unbelievably better when his hair was finally tied back again, despite how much his arms ached from having to be held above his head while he braided. His happiness was noticed even by Heero, who promptly found that he liked his slave's hair in the long plait that reached his thighs.

Heero discovered that although he couldn't run his hands through Luna's hair the way he liked, the braid stopped him from having to brush the hair every single day, and brushing it was a feat in itself. He also found himself highly satisfied by grabbing the base of the plait and winding it around his hand, then closing it in a fist, effectively making his slave leashed to him by his own mass of silky chestnut hair.

Luna received a slave bracelet of an extremely expensive nature, made of silver, with amethysts on every connection. The bracelet, which attached to his middle finger, fit like a second skin. It was different in design to other slave bracelets, which just dipped in a triangle shape to attach to the ring, in that this one covered his entire hand, with small amethysts designed to dangle and rest on each finger, while the ring was long, reaching his second knuckle, where it gave way to drop another amethyst just below his second knuckle. Luna found the thing hypnotic and mesmerising, and he stared at it for hours on end, just watching the craftsmanship and the way the gems on his fingers swayed like beads.

Luna received five pairs of gloves, to which his eyes nearly bulged from his skull. He had never owned five items of clothing at once before, let alone five items of the same type of clothing. He had a pair for horseriding, which he had never done before, a pair for riding in formality, which were the same as the other pair, black and leather, just with silver stitching and Heero's crest on the back, a simple hawk's feather. He had another formal pair, not for riding, made of satin, which reached his elbows and had a silk trim around the wrist. They also had silver stitching and Heero's crest. He also had a pair of winter gloves, made of fluffy black wool. They were trimmed with fur and reached his forearms. Lastly, he had a pair of everyday gloves, made of black satin that reached the elbow.

Heero seemed quite intent on smothering him with things, and while Luna loved each and every one, he was nervous about what exactly Heero might be trying to buy from him.

Trowa, for some strange reason, had a habit of seeing right through his every nervous gesture. Trowa read him like a scribe to a book, and he didn't bother to hide it. Trowa talked to him like no one else could, watching him intently, hearing him with his eyes instead of his ears. Naturally, Trowa picked up on his nerves almost immediately, and for some reason, knew exactly what it was about.

"Don't pay him back," the ex-Hunter said. "You're a sex slave. His sex slave. If he wanted your favors, he would just take them, not try to bribe them from you with things. He's Royalty, remember that. He has never, and will never, have to pay for sex. He can get that for free. If he is trying to buy something from you, it isn't that."

Trowa then, far more obviously than was necessary, raised his hand and rubbed at his left cheek as though it was sore or bruised, then held his hand out, seemingly to inspect his fingernails, each digit held straight up, as though he were signalling the number five. He then smirked and winked.

"Milk it."

* * *

Things between Heero and Luna fell back to the way they had been, as though Heero had never laid a hand on him, despite the bruises to the contrary. Luna reverted back to being obedient, affectionate and submissive without being afraid almost immediately. Heero suspected that Luna believed that his actions had all been the work of the spell, and while he didn't say anything to the contrary, he feared that it may not be true.

Heero wasn't angry about Luna rooming with Winner anymore, but he found it hard to be angry about anything at all. He'd been sapped dry of all his anger that day. He wasn't angry about it, but he wasn't happy about it either. He was jealous, wary, annoyed and sad that Winner had blemished his slave's past, but thankfully, he was not angry in the slightest.

Luna slowly built up a ravenous appetite, eating breakfast with Heero every morning and three other smaller meals with Irea through the day. Trowa became actively involved in helping Luna get better, offering to keep him company, bring him meals, make sure he drank his potions. He also became quite an annoyance to Heero, something he had never been before, as he pushed and prodded the King about the slave walking.

Heero wasn't ready to think about that yet, as he had lots on his mind from the sorcerer attack to the arrival of Zechs Merquise, but Trowa was persistant.

Trowa didn't think the way Heero did, staring ahead in thought of the future, trying to think of how he could keep Luna the way he was, obedient, affectionate, and submissive. Heero wanted Luna to stay where he was until he saw that being let out of that room, even on a short leash, was a privilege and a reward, not a right.

Trowa disagreed. He said to Heero that Luna needed to start trying to walk _right now_, or his feet would become so far gone that when he did try he would be unable to. He said that if Heero wanted him bedridden, it was better and kinder to chain him there, because at least then there would be hope and a desire to earn the privilege and reward of leaving Heero's quarters.

After almost constant pestering, Heero snapped under pressure and gave Irea the go ahead, and they arranged a time for her to survey his feet again, prescribe some proper shoes, and see what they could do.

Luna was nervous, his lips red from being bitten, when Irea showed up and started to stare intently at his ankles. He had gotten rather good at hiding them away, ignoring them, and every other way of keeping them from being touched, but Irea was insistant and Heero stood there, leaning on the wall, staring down at them both with a glare that could have pierced a shield.

So Luna did as he was told, trying to move his foot around like Irea told him to, even as every fibre of his being told him not to. He couldn't bend his ankle as far as he was supposed to be able to, and he simply couldn't move the toes on his left foot. It was blissfully pleasant for him to discover that they didn't hurt at all when Irea touched them and bended them, but then again, they didn't feel anything else either. Everything else just seemed to hurt, and neither person in the room seemed inclined to give him mercy no matter how many pained looks he sent them.

And then Irea took his feet in her hand, one then the other, and started bending them herself, poking and prodding, moving and then _pushing_ on them. She pushed his foot flat onto the floor, which hurt to begin with, then pressed down onto his knee.

Luna let loose every dirty word he knew, and then came up with a few new ones, trying to use creative energy to distract from the pain. It didn't work, of course, but it was the first time since before the Maxwell Church that he had used such foul language and gotten away with it.

Once he had gotten that out of his system, he promptly told Irea that she was a sailor's whore, and watched her bemused stare as she tried to read his lips. That helped him feel a little less angry at her.

Spurred on, he turned to Heero, thinking of all the mean things he should spit at him for hitting him, for treating him like he was some sort of _pet_, for being semi-responsible for imprisoning him in that cell, that _hell_ of a dungeon.

_You bastard, you arse_, he thought._ You unholy dog's whore. You stupid, cruel, _rapist_, bastard. You took me into your bed like you had the right, you put me into a room with no moonlight then _punished_ me for trying to get to the window so I wouldn't fucking die! You _forced_ me when I was too weak to resist! You coward, you blue-blooded noble shit! And you seem to take some sick pleasure in that I can't make a sound, can't tell you what a bastard you are! I ought to curse you, I ought to set you aflame, I ought to burn your house down! I ought to bring the wrath of the Moon upon you, you failure, you bad seed, you!_

"I love you."

* * *

Quatre paused, the brush halfway through his hair, which reached his shoulders after all those years without proper grooming. He frowned, looking into the mirror in Mister Have's personal quarters, which Rashid and the other Maguanacs had generously given him.

His knuckles were white on the brush, and his scalp hurt from where the hair had pulled when he had raked the brush too hard. He took a few deep breaths, staring into the mirror.

He'd felt anger so fierce it had taken over him for a moment. And it had been Duo's anger. Duo was mad, very mad. Quatre kept breathing slowly.

As fast as it had hit him, Duo's emotion had left, leaving nothing at all, as though it had never been there to begin with. What could be happening to Duo? Why couldn't he find Duo through the link in his heart? He tried and tried, but Duo's emotions simply weren't accessible. That had only ever happened when someone died, but Duo was alive, the leech still fed him, even though he didn't need it now. Duo was alive but ... suppressed in some way.

Quatre slowly picked the brush out of his hair, putting his head in his hands. He had to find Duo. But there was no way of finding him without going to the capital and digging up the records of where sorcerers were sent or sold after leaving prison, and he had too many things to do here. He was sorting through every single prisoner, taking the good and putting them in the care and teaching of the more powerful sorcerers, remodelling the entire labyrinth to something that could hopefully one day act as a place of learning for sorcerers, and a place to hold in those that could not be redeemed.

A man deep in the prison, nicknamed Laki by Quatre, would never leave these walls. He drew power from earth, and upon being surrounded by it on all sides in the underground prison, he had gone completely mad. He had lost all comprehension, even that if he used magic, the bands would hurt him. He had tried to shield against whatever hurt him, but the bands continued their piercing and he had lashed out, using magic through his hands to hurt everyone and everything around him. The bands pierced, blood flowed, but he did not weaken as power was fed to him in masses.

Rashid's emotion, when he had told Quatre of the day he had first severed Laki's hands, had forced Quatre to tears. Since then, he had severed them three times. They just kept growing back.


	22. The Real Worst News All Week

Author's Notes: And this is where the shitteth beginneth to hitteth the fanneth.

Apologies on my horrible update time track record. Its at this point in the story where I had to choose where I wanted it to go, down which plotline I had in my head. It's been hard to commit to one, I had so many different endings in my head. And still do. I still come up with new ways for shit to hit the fan in this story every day. And we're at best half way through. We haven't even met my namesake yet.

* * *

MoonChild

Chapter Twenty Two – The Real Worst News All Week

Sunday night, Heero was forced from the side of his over-affectionate deathweed inebriated slave by a messenger who looked rather pasty.

He said there was a crate waiting for him in the Parlour. Heero huffed, annoyed beyond all comprehension, and snapped that it should be brought to him in his rooms.

The messenger made an odd sound and raised his hand to cover his mouth. When he was satisfied he wouldn't be sick, he said to Heero, seeming not to realize who he was talking to and what he was saying, "You don't want it in here." He then ran off, hand over his mouth still.

Heero slammed his door and returned to Luna sitting on his bed, who grinned like a maniac and wrapped his arms around his torso, nuzzling his head into his master's stomach. Heero dropped his hands to Luna's hair, braided with the black ribbon he liked so much, and ran his fingers through the bound masses. If Luna had any sound he would have purred.

Heero dropped to his knees, bringing himself and his slave to eye level. Luna's droopy eyelids belied just how much the deathweed was affecting him. Irea had given it to him to numb the pain which had stayed after she tortured him by moving his feet, but now that it had done that job it was serving another purpose.

Luna had no fear of him. The drug had made him content and affectionate, which Heero basked in, but fully expected the boy to pull away and retreat into his shell once he realized what he was doing. Once he realized that Heero might take it as an _invitation_. Either the deathweed had stopped him from realizing it yet, or it had taken away his fear of that realization. Either way, Luna was all over him.

"Luna," he said, ducking his head so his face was in view of the slave, whose half lidded eyes prohibited him from seeing anything that wasn't underneath him.

Luna smiled in a way that looked clearly drunk before moving to the side and trying to push himself into Heero's neck. Heero grabbed his arms and held him still. Luna pouted and Heero was highly tempted to return to his door and tell the Doorguard that the crate and whatever was in it could go get fucked under consent of the King.

"I have to go for a while," he said resignedly. It took Luna quite some time to understand, but when he did he looked about to cry. His pout turned into a begging expression. "I'm sorry," Heero said, and meant it. Luna sniffed and looked even more as though he were going to cry.

Heero pulled the slave into a hug so he wouldn't have to look at his face. He _hated_ it when people cried.

"I'll be back soon," he said, and went to kiss the boy's forehead.

Luna saw it coming, his master had done it enough times. He pushed himself up fast, amazed that he did it in time considering the haze he was in, but the deathweed stopped him from feeling the agony of using his feet to move up.

Heero's lips found themselves pressed against Luna's, his eyes wide at the unexpected change. Luna slowly inched himself back to sit on the bed, pouting when Heero didn't follow, severing their connection.

Luna stared up at his master, pouting and looking as pitiful as he could muster. Heero stared at him, shocked in place, until the image of the creature on his bed looking rejected and sad shocked him into movement.

He returned Luna's kiss, taking his bottom lip into his mouth and sucking it lightly, then releasing it. "Tuck yourself in," he ordered, without pulling back, staring Luna straight in his big dark eyes.

Luna pushed himself clumsily into Heero's lips again. It was a little rough, the slave wasn't really in control of himself, and he was grinning like a madman, so it was an odd kiss, but as he pulled away and crawled over to the head of the bed, grabbed his silk pillow and climbed in, Heero realized that no matter how chaste it was, no matter how amateur, it was still a far better goodnight kiss than the ones on the forehead Heero had been allowed so far.

He smiled softly all the way down to the Parlour, where it was wiped clean from his face by the most _awful_ smell.

WuFei and Trowa (who it took a while to locate as he was hanging upside down from the rafters) met him in the Parlour, a large, open room connected to the Courtyard Gardens. The Parlour was where Heero entertained private guests, held small dinners and conducted informal meetings. It was the room where all the most decadent happenings of the court took place. It was the room he would entertain Merquise in. There would be a formal dinner in the Banquet Hall celebrating his arrival and departure, but all other happenings would take place in the Parlour, where the two of them would face off like two male lions showing off their pride females. Heero would be expected to bring a concubine, something he dreaded, and the concubine would be expected to lie either at his feet or with his head in his lap. Zechs would probably bring one too, and the two slaves would be watched like pieces of meat. They had to be perfect, submissive little minions.

The idea of concubines in public was something of Sanq tradition, which was why it was upheld by Karen Miya. Chalc masters let their concubines practically roam free, and Sanq found that to be a testament to the Chalc nobility's inability to control anything. Chalc masters didn't control their slaves, therefore they were bad leaders.

Heero naturally couldn't afford to give that impression to Sanq. Before his acquisition of Luna, he would have been able to entertain Zechs alone with the excuse that he had not yet found a slave worthy to be in both of their presences, but now that he had Luna, it signalled that he had found one worthy. If Luna didn't attend, it would signal to Zechs that Heero didn't want him there, maybe because he was disobedient, maybe because he had recently been punished and was unable to attend, maybe, maybe, maybe. There were a lot of reasons for a master to keep his concubine from such a meeting and none of them reflected well on the master.

Heero needed a good reputation with Sanq, so it was imperative that he had a perfectly behaved concubine in attendance at those meetings. Normally he would have not taken one at all or just picked one from his harem, but he hadn't visited there in quite some time. Since he had left for Yarani to be exact. He couldn't pick out a harem slave and have them at those meetings, it would reflect badly again. Why would a master take a lesser slave when his favourite stays back? Maybe because he's disobedient ... maybe, maybe, maybe.

Heero had two options, he either started training Luna in the proper behaviour, or he told Zechs the truth, that his concubine wasn't quite ready to be outside of Heero's rooms. The 'He's unwell' card had been played for so long now it wouldn't keep. All Luna really had to do would be lie at his feet or side and not reject any touches from Heero. He could fall asleep during the entire meeting. Little to no effort would be involved.

The best way things could happen would be if Heero proposed the idea to his slave, told him everything that would be expected of him, and Luna accepted. Few slaves ever did, and Heero didn't want to go down in the slave's esteem. He would be asking Luna to publicly humiliate himself, asking him to behave like a pet, and Heero didn't know how Luna would take that.

There was another factor as well, something which had contributed greatly to Heero's reluctance to allow Luna to walk. His status as a concubine forbade him to be anywhere but Heero's side or his rooms. Once Luna walked, he could only do so freely inside Heero's rooms. Outside of there, he had to be right by Heero, and constantly keeping up the act of a perfect concubine. Heero didn't know whether that was something he could ask of Luna at this stage. After being mostly alone in his rooms, how would he handle being consistently belittled and humiliated by his own master in front of who knew how many people?

He had once seen his uncle grab his concubine out of nowhere, press her into the wall and kiss her. He had been little and hadn't understood what was happening, just that all of a sudden everyone else felt they had to do the same. Slaves were suddenly the entertainment of the minute, and every master felt they had to show that their slave would let them go further than anyone else's.

It was a complex idea, that of concubines. His mother had to explain it to him over and over before he understood, and even then it had been shaky.

A concubine that fought was not truly afraid of their master. This made the master seem less dominant, less in control. A good concubine never fought, no matter how many people saw them belittled by their master. However the best concubine wasn't one that was terrified of their master. The best concubine never fought, feared their master, but at the same time _liked_ their master. A concubine that kissed back after being shoved violently against a wall was a concubine that was in awe of their master, amazed at his power, and despite being used, hurt and humiliated, still felt gifted to be in his most awesome, godlike presence.

If someone still saw a man as the most amazing thing to grace the earth despite having that man do terrible things to them, that man must really be the most amazing thing to grace the earth. That was the impression Luna had to give. He had to willingly curl up at his feet on the floor, had to allow Heero to pin him and ravage his mouth, even kiss back. He had to act grateful if he were allowed to curl up beside him, head on his lap, instead of at his feet like a dog.

It was just ... too much at this stage. Luna had only just started being affectionate toward him, and pushing it like this just seemed like such a bad idea.

Heero sighed and walked to the lounge reserved for him. The Parlour was a King's entertaining room, however informal, and still needed a Throne of some sort. The lounge was a deep violet color, long and wide and very comfortable. It was made for a concubine to lie on it with their master, and Heero found himself wondering what it would be like to have Luna lying at his side, head buried in his lap. His every inch of skin would be covered, his hair tucked into his shirts and cloaks. Heero would be able to slide his hand between the hood and the back of Luna's shirt, then touch his hair and rub his neck. It would be more than nice to have Luna here. Heero spent a lot of his time in this room, it was his informal duty room, and having Luna there with him, even just as a body to touch to soothe himself, would be wonderful.

Luna would lie by his side, smiling and nuzzling his head into Heero's leg. Heero would occasionally adjust the boy's hood so as to watch his face, but he'd be careful, no one else was allowed to see the boy. When Luna looked at him, the light from the Parlour's open roof, a latticed wood platform with vines and hanging plants, would dapple all over him and his black silk clothes. Light would hit his hair just so and everything else would fade into oblivion for a few moments, and when Heero returned to what he had been doing before, he would be rejuvenated, peaceful, content.

Heero kept this image in his mind as he sat forward in his seat, taking a few deep breaths of the putrid smelling air, keeping that image in his mind to calm him and distract him from the equally wonderful situation he had just had to tear himself from. He'd just get this package thing out of the way and head straight back upstairs. He took another deep breath and nearly choked on it.

"What is that smell?" he asked the people in the room.

Chang gave a meaningful glance to Heero's Head Guard, Laer, who held the crate Heero assumed was the one for him under one arm. His other hand held his nose.

Trowa hung by his knees from a beam holding the Parlour's latticed roof. He was closest to the source of fresh air, and Heero envied him.

Laer brought the crate closer, and placed it on the low table in front of Heero's seat. The smell became easily three times worse with the change in proximity, making Heero realise why they had brought it to the Parlour, a big open room with lots of air. And also why that messenger had said he wouldn't want it in his rooms. Heero made a face, something rather out of character for him, but the stench was _really bad_. "Is there a dead body folded up in there or something, Laer?"

Laer gave him an odd look, a grim look that neither confirmed nor denied the question. "We opened it first at the gates when it arrived, wondering the same thing. When I saw the contents I knew you would want to see it personally, your Highness," Laer spoke with military curtness, and briskness, the main reason Heero had kept him on after his father died. Laer undid four small latches on the sides of the crate and took off the top panel.

The crate was around a foot and a half wide, long and tall. From the thump it had made when it hit the table Heero had known its contents were heavy, but that did not prepare him for what he saw when he stood from his seat so as to see inside.

Inside a thick glass canister filled with water floated the head of a man. The water was a dark red from blood, which was from a wound in the man's forehead. Dead black eyes stared at him from beneath dead white skin. The man's hair floated in black waves around the top of the jar.

Heero drummed his fingers on the side of the crate, staring at the head in the jar. "You know," he said eventually in a testy manner, "This would have had a much better effect if I knew who this was."

Laer made an odd noise, looking at the crate's contents distastefully.

"Do you know who this is?" he asked the Head Guard.

Laer shook his head.

"Hm. Barton, Chang, come look."

"I can see fine from here," Trowa said airily, having a perfect view from above as he hung upside down. "Never seen him before ... well, I can't guarantee that, but I don't _remember_ seeing him before."

WuFei walked to them. "I don't see what help I'd be, this sort of thing has nothing to do with me and ... and ... my ... profession..." he trailed off as he saw the head, staring down at it in nothing short of horror as color drained very quickly from his face until he was a similar shade to their dead friend's head. "Oh my God." WuFei crossed himself.

"I didn't know you were religious," Heero said.

"I'm not," WuFei replied. "But God is about all that can help us now. That is Mayne Have, the warden of the Yarani dungeons."

Trowa had been climbing down from his bat-like perch and he slipped, crashing onto the floor. No one spared him a glance. He didn't return to his feet but stayed on his knees and joined the others as they crossed themselves.

It was Trowa that spotted the note. It had been partially hidden underneath the jar, and he slipped it out and read. "It's jibberish," he said, confused.

"Show me," Heero demanded, reaching out for the paper. Trowa handed it over, shrugging.

Heero's hand quivered as he read the 'jibberish' note. He froze, staring at it, and could only imagine what his expression must have looked like as he read the worst four words he had read in a very long time.

WuFei sidled behind him and stared at the parchment, his breath hitching. When it returned it was shaky. "He always did like a riddle," he said quietly. Heero nodded blankly, he hadn't really heard.

_Queue_

_Are_

_Double_

_You_

* * *

Suddenly WuFei laughed, a small, quiet chuckle that was decidedly out of place in the tense atmosphere. "You owe me five coppers."

Once WuFei's meagre sum of five coppers was doled out, Heero set about putting the entire Kingdom under lockdown. The Palace guards had their shifts doubled and a pay bonus that nobody could afford so that they would keep on the alert. City guards were recruited by the dozen while minor guards in outer towns were alerted and many promoted.

Heero hated what he authorized, he felt he was giving far too much power away. Guards almost had the same amount of power as mayors, able to refuse entry to their town to anyone that seemed suspicious. It was now High Treason to hesitate to give information regarding sorcerers of any kind, punishable by lifetime banishment.

The entire city would wake up to Guard recruitment posters and high security. There would be a panic and Heero fully intended to spend time in the city to deal with that panic.

Heero felt some of his ability to be angry return. He kept it in check, which stilled his fears that someone was meddling in his thoughts again, but he was glad in a way that he was mad. He had every right to be mad.

All those years ago, his grandfather had passed a decree to imprison sorcerers. The entire population had rejoiced, the problem had been so bad. For years, mages had terrorized the people, made them live in fear.

WuFei said things were strange back then. The logs of history claimed that there were no sane sorcerers to be found, not a one that stood out from the rest. Now that was different. Now there were sorcerers like Luna, like Tsu, and like several others he had known.

All that Heero saw was a Kingdom that had been under siege by forces of evil. His grandfather had been _forced_ to pass that law. He had the choice of imprisoning one person that would never be productive to the kingdom and save the lives of who knew how many innocents that would be active participants in the community; or leave the killer sorcerer alone and sentence the innocent people he was around to a life of terror or death. There was only one decision Gorenia Yuy could have made.

Now Winner had the balls to threaten them. Heero could see his reasoning, of course, he had been locked in a dungeon for six years, but he was an educated man. Surely he should have had the brains to see that _his_ kind were the ones that started all this?

"You generalize them too much," WuFei said. "Winner doesn't see the sorcerers of decades ago as any relation to him. And to be honest, Winner is a far cry from the really bad ones. The really bad ones have no sense of community, of loyalty. Winner has a sense of pride in being a sorcerer, he thinks it makes him a part of a Kingdom all of its own. Whatever Winner's doing, he's doing it different to how things happened two generations ago. Back then mages didn't stick together, back then it was every mage for himself trying to see, 'how much I can destroy this time?' With Winner helping, things will be different, and probably much harder to beat."

"How can we beat them?"

WuFei half huffed, half sighed. "First we need to know what's really happening. All we know for sure is that Have is dead and Winner may be involved. There are too many questions. Are the Maguanac – the natives – involved? Is Winner heading it or just backing them up? If its an issue with the Maguanac, they've been restless for years and we'll be able to settle with some choice words and some form of payment. If they've got Winner in on it, even if they're in charge, Winner's still the main worry. If Winner's heading it, then we're royally fucked. He could have opened every cell in the place and told them all to run free. He could be organising them into an _army_ even. We're going to need to get in touch with Winner – addressed to Winner anyway, that was who they made it out to be from. Then we need to negotiate - yes, Yuy, negotiate. I have no intention of fighting Winner _ever_ again and I have no intention of letting _you_ either."

Heero grumbled and glared for a while, feeling his ability to get angry return in leaps and bounds.

WuFei continued. "I sent a letter to Have after I saw Luna. They probably received it a few days ago. I feel rather bad about it, actually."

"Why, what did you say?"

"I threatened to knock his brains from his skull, and I now realize that when I wrote that, the exact same thing had already happened."

Heero contemplated this then frowned, having had a rather disturbing thought. "That sorcerer on the walls – could that have been Winner? None of us saw him, only Trowa and Luna, and Trowa's never seen Winner and Luna wouldn't exactly _tell _me."

WuFei didn't answer for a moment, looking shocked, then he let his head drop into his hands. "I'm slipping, I'm really slipping," he said mournfully. "I didn't even think about that. It's just not Winner's _style_, it didn't occur to me. Besides, the attack was also on Luna, and though I wouldn't put it past him, I can't see Winner attacking a friend unless there were no other course – unless he doesn't know ... maybe Winner doesn't know that Luna is here. He wouldn't _personally_ attack Luna, but if the mage were someone else, someone he hired to do the job for him, someone that didn't know Luna's face ... we might be onto something here." WuFei chewed on this for a moment, then threw up his hands in defeat. "We'll need some time to work on this, and now is not the time. Staying up all night will just make the Castle think our boat has been heavily rocked by this."

"Said the dry sailor to the King thrown overboard."

WuFei sniggered. "Well, at least we're alive at the moment," he said, then gave a bow and retreated to the door.

"I can't swim!" Heero called to him, and WuFei barked out a laugh. Heero leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He really couldn't swim, and the undertones of the statement had been mostly true. He was floundering here. War, he could take, he'd watched Chalc do it from all sides since he'd been born, but all this uncertainty, this inability to judge the enemy, this certain defeat he was facing if it came to a fight ... he didn't like it at all.

Heero made his way desolately back to his rooms, cheered up only minutely by Trowa clapping him on the back and saying, "Once you tell Luna what Winner's done, he'll probably be all the more loyal to you. I don't see him wanting to be friends with one that puts people's heads in jars."

Heero knew he'd have to tell Luna about it, and had been dreading doing so until Trowa mentioned that. If Trowa were right, and he usually was when it came to people, then pretty, kind little Luna would feel betrayed by Quatre's cruelty and would run to the only person he could – Heero.

Heero had been gone for hours, busy with the package and all of its implications, so when he reached his rooms he expected Luna to be fast asleep. He looked forward to that, knowing then that explaining what had happened could wait until the morrow, and all he would have to do now would be to make sure himself and Luna were tucked in sufficiently.

Luna, however, was wide awake when he entered and greeted him with a smile. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing nothing but a too-big pair of drawstring sleeping pants. Heero vaguely recognised them as his own. Luna's previous clothing, the black silk concubine clothes, were neatly folded on Heero's trunk. Luna was outside the covers, exposed to the cold winter air completely, but he didn't shiver a bit, despite Heero's pants and the silk pillow on his lap being his only form of protection from the cold. His eyes weren't as droopy, which told Heero that the deathweed had worn off, but it gave no answers as to why he was sitting outside the covers, bare chested, on such a cold night.

Heero put off questioning him so as to study the smaller boy's body, illuminated by the moonlight that filtered through his windows. He was reminded forcefully of the very first time he had been with Luna in this room, how the moonlight had danced upon his skin, how he had looked as he was set down onto the soft lilac silk sheets, his beautiful hair tickling Heero's cheek as he buried his head into Luna's neck.

It was then that he first suspected the moonlight had something to do with Luna's health. It fit perfectly with the changes in his surroundings and health, and also made some of Luna's more odd behaviours make sense. That night on the Kyumakie, where Luna had chosen to cuddle up to Heero for warmth rather than close the window, had that been because of what WuFei had said about sorcerers drawing magic from elements of nature? The first day in the Prince's rooms, when the boy had stared from the window to the wall, as though begging them to switch places, could that have been because Luna knew that without his source of magic he would stop recovering? Had he crawled from Heero's bed in the direction of the window so as to receive the magic he needed to recover, and Heero had just misunderstood that act of desperation as an act of insubordination? And when they had moved to the King's rooms, Luna had been exposed completely to the moonlight, and on a full moon too. He had spent half the night outside the covers, exposed completely to the moon's glow, and the next morning had woken refreshed and cheerful, as though he hadn't been on his deathbed the night before, and since then had only gotten better and better.

Heero forced it from his mind as something to discuss with WuFei and possibly Tsu at another time. Instead, he moved toward his bed, and sat in front of the slave, cross legged on his bed.

"Not cold?" he mused, reaching out a hand to Luna's arm, where he rested his palm for a few seconds. Luna's skin was warm, as though the sun were shining a midsummer heat.

Luna watched his hand intently until he was sure it wasn't moving anywhere, then looked at his master and shook his head.

Heero was beginning to see more and more aspects of his slave's character as he regained health, and had yet to be disappointed. Luna was energetic by nature, and the moment he had the energy to spare, he would cease being lethargic. Regular, mundane movements that he used often, nods and shakes of the head, became not simply a movement of the head but a whole body and facial movement. At a nod, depending on how excited he was about what he was agreeing to, Luna would lean his entire body toward Heero, and his shoulders a little more than, forcing his collarbones into sharp protrusion (a movement that never failed to make Heero's hands twitch to touch them). Luna's eyes would widen, his smile make the room spin, and inhale in a quick, excited breath. The act of nodding would be a fast movement where his head barely moved but one knew he had said yes simply from his expression.

Depending on what he was signalling a negative to, shaking his head could be similar or vastly different. When grumpy, Luna's shakes were accompanied by a pouting frown and a glare with no real potency, but when there was no annoyance or disgruntlement in his answer, his shakes were something of a lethal weapon. Luna would fling his head from side to side like an animal, his hair, if unbound, flying about him in random directions.

Heero caught a lock of hair in his hand, then watched as Luna's eyes flashed with something akin to fear, then was banished in favour of sheepishness. He lowered his head and stared up at his master, biting his lip and pouting accompanied by an apologetic expression.

Heero brought the captive hair to his lips and kissed it, then let it fall. "Did you wait up for me?" he asked.

Luna started to nod energetically, then seemed to secondguess it and became sheepish again. He looked to Heero with big blue eyes as though asking whether it was alright.

Heero considered telling the boy what had happened right then, but decided against it. All the little excuses he came up with brought nothing to the light of the truth: he just couldn't be bothered. Things were good between him and Luna at that precise moment and he was highly against that changing.

He placed his hand on Luna's cheek, then watched as Luna brought his own hand up, equipped with his new ring, to hold his hand in place. Luna quite happily turned his head toward Heero's palm, pressing his face into his master's skin with a little smile that was, like all else about him, perfect.

Heero moved to the boy's side but left his hand as it was. He pulled Luna to his chest with his other arm and lowered his gaze to the slave's red bronze hair at his shoulder.

Luna cuddled into him as though he were a perfectly trained concubine, as though he were a concubine settled in his environment. Sex slaves, especially favourites, were notorious for taking quite some time to become comfortable with their masters and their surroundings, but despite Luna's surroundings being changed a grand total of three times in the few weeks Heero had owned him, Luna had settled with his master as though he had been born and bred for it.

Heero wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he certainly wasn't going to complain. Rather, he just held Luna closer.

Luna removed his hand from Heero's and his other hand from the pillow on his lap, and hooked his arms around Heero's neck. As he leaned forward, he almost hit his head on Heero's chin, then paused and looked up at his master sheepishly again.

Heero couldn't take it anymore, that adorable look had stopped making just his fingers twitch, now both of his hands and his mouth were operating with minds of their own, minds with a single unified purpose: make Luna stop pouting.

His arms snaked their way around Luna's body, his hands on Luna's back, where he pulled him in closer. Luna intook a breath quickly, but he didn't make to get out of the embrace.

Heero's lips were on Luna's before the boy's mouth closed from his breath, and Heero took the opportunity to mesh their lips together. When finally he had an inch of self control, he pulled back a little and saw Luna's eyes, big and unsure.

He let his thumbs caress Luna's bare back through his hair, then smiled a little. "Close your eyes, and do as I do," he suggested.

Luna gave a tiny little apprehensive nod, then shut his eyes. Heero brought their lips together again, and brought Luna's bottom lip between his own, then released it. Luna mimicked him as he had been told, moving to take his master's lip in his own, then let it go.

After a while of mimicking and Luna's nervous hyperventilating, Heero let them break apart. Luna was flushed, bright red as though he were imitating a tomato and doing a fine job of it. He stared into Heero's eyes, begging for positive reinforcement, begging to be told he wasn't terrible, he was good enough to be kept.

"You're perfect," Heero told him.


	23. There Are No Happy Endings

Author's Notes: Aryam McAllyster made a fantastic point about five months ago in her review when I last updated (you read that right, five months). Shame on me. Aryam said this story needs a "nicer lemon", and I just want to let readers know - it's there, it's already been written, and you will actually get it. Twice thus far. I am very far ahead of this plot wise - just had to make up my mind on whether to make it final by updating.

* * *

Chapter Twenty Three – There Are No Happy Endings, Because Nothing Ever Ends

"I need to know where my cellmate is," Quatre said plainly. He had cornered Rashid in Have's office under the pretence of a lesson in magic history. Rashid was an avid student.

Rashid had been evading the question ever since he and Quatre had come to their agreement and consequent friendship. Quatre had free reign of the island, and as an unbanded sorcerer of his power, free reign to teleport wherever he so wished. He used his name willingly to aid in their plight, and they in turn no longer had to watch the rest of the sorcorers so earnestly. Quatre had set up a system by ranks of power, sensed by his magic, and trustworthiness, sensed by his empathic sixth sense. The most powerful sorcerers trained under him, and trained those below them. They in turn trained those below themselves, and the first school of learning magic for many, many years had been formed.

Those that did not intend to use their magic properly, responsibly, remained in the dungeon as before, banded, imprisoned and miserable. The moment they changed their minds about their decision, they would be given free reign of the island and be taught by those more powerful, but under Quatre's empathy, faking was simply impossible.

The number of sorcerers that rallied under Quatre was incredible. He had but to show his power, letting loose a heal so powerful it could all but bring back the dead, and people typically fell to their knees and begged his guidance.

He didn't want to show his aura just yet. He had taken upon himself a giant task, to rebuild magical society from the distraught state it was in, but that didn't mean he liked it. He was just the only one informed enough to do it. Showing his aura would mean that he would have to stay after he was done. The mages would never let him go. He liked it here, but he was still young. Six years in prison had taken away the years of his life he would have spent deciding what he wanted to do with himself, so now he was twentyone years old and with all the experience of a fifteen year old. He knew he liked it in the magical paradise he'd created. The only question was whether he liked it enough to stay forever. Whether he liked it enough to give up the friend he had made in his dreams.

There were so many students, so many so willing to learn ... Quatre adored the place. It wasn't just the teaching, either. It was a perfect environment for him to branch out, discover new magics. For one who had always focused on straight healing, it was a thrill to learn to decurse, to cast a mageflame, to enchant a blade, to cast a rune, which was normally Duo's specialty. As he spoke with their most powerful rune mage, he learned more and more about Duo's magic, and his psyche. It was under this mage that he learned that there may in fact be something wrong with Duo's mind.

Rune mages were notorious for being crazy. Of all mages, they were the most likely to become obsessive, or stalkers, or hermits, or schizophrenic, or, as was most likely, all of the above. Runes apparently changed one's very mindset, how they thought, how they felt, but most prominently, they changed how they reacted to stress, fear, and danger. This was because of what runes were – traps. They were traps, laid on the ground, useless until someone was stupid enough to trip over one. As a result, Rune Mages were useless in a battle unless they could set up a full perimeter around themselves. The magic knew this. It knew it was flawed. So it messed with the mind of the Rune Mage to make up for it. It turned them into hermits – they would normally bind themselves to their houses, or if they didn't have one, they would flee society at a very young age, find themselves a nice quiet forest and build themselves a house, laying rune traps in every log, every floorboard, every pillow, every door. They would sequester themselves in their own little prison houses, ever protected, ever alone. And if ever a Rune Mage was lured or forced from where they deemed as their home, they were vulnerable. They loathed it. They feared it. The fear alone would drive them quite mad.

This was all terrifying to learn for Quatre. Until learning this, he had honestly thought that Duo was someone he could solidly rely on. But according to the other rune mages, this was _not_ the case.

Everyone he spoke to about rune mages said different but similar things. All Rune Mages are crazy. A Rune Mage outside of his home is crazy. A Rune Mage in danger is crazy. A Rune Mage that has ever _seen_ danger is crazy. A Rune Mage without Runes laid in front of him is crazy.

Though Quatre never told them quite why he was asking, they all seemed to believe the same thing – that Duo was definitely insane.

It seemed that it was a miracle that Duo had survived his troubled childhood, let alone that he had managed to pull his mind together long enough to be sane while imprisoned with Quatre, let alone that he had managed all this without ever binding himself to a place, having a home. Even if Quatre added this resolve and strength of will that Duo obviously possessed, he couldn't possibly still be right in the head with whatever his new master was doing with him.

Every now and then, in sparks and tiny flashes, he felt glimpses of Duo, but they were gone faster than they came. Even when people slept, Quatre still felt them, but not Duo. Duo was simply gone most of the time.

The scariest thing about it was that Quatre thought he knew what was causing that. It was part of what gave Rune mages their reputation for the crazies.

Embedded deep within the brain, three runes would take hold, gaining strength the more one specialized in runes. They were placed right over the amygdala, the part of the brain which helped to suppress emotions.

Thus, when an emotion could not be suppressed, the runes would be tripped, and their effects would take place, to help the mage survive whatever horror it was that had caused the surplus emotion. Duo had definitely already tripped the first rune, the minor one, which caused the amygdala to overfunction, suppressing all emotion. He had just come out of that state when Quatre met him in Yarani. That rune would not be able to be tripped again until a period of good health and plentiful magic caused it to rejuvenate.

That left the final two runes, the major and the prime, to be worried about. If Duo had been stressed enough to activate the prime rune, then the entire royal ship would have been destroyed, or Duo would be, and so would everyone else in a mile radius. Either way Quatre would have known by now.

It had to have been the major that had been flipped, but that was not something Quatre even wanted to think about.

None of this escalated his opinion of whoever had Duo in their keeping. This person, or persons, had with them a boy that was fragile. When people are fragile, the last thing that ought to be done to them is to collar them and put them into your servitude – or worse - your bed. Quatre wasn't stupid. He knew that someone's bed was probably exactly where Duo had been put, exactly the kind of place that he shouldn't be in. Duo needed time and familiar, safe, unthreatening and unthreatened things. The only familiar thing he had was Quatre.

But Quatre would never be safe, never be unthreatened, never feel that the world was safe, until Duo was back under his eye. Once Duo was back with him, they could extend their reach from Yarani, to search for _it_.

But his main concern, currently, was the fear that Duo would die. Should Duo die, then Quatre would lose the power of the MoonChild, and would have to run several risks. First, that the next MoonChild, when he was born anew, would be unfindable by Quatre. If so, there was the risk that the Child's upbringing would make him go sour. If circumstances bade him become evil, then Quatre would have no choice but to kill him and start anew, and hope that in his next life he would be good. Then he would have to wait for him to grow into his powers, and only then could they begin searching.

All that time, decades, possibly even centuries, would be more time that Quatre was vulnerable. If someone found _it_ before he did, they wouldn't do the responsible thing and destroy it. They couldn't even if they wanted to.

Quatre wasn't sure that he and Duo would be able to, even if he managed to save Duo, get him back into good health and they managed to actually find the thing. Hopefully, if they couldn't destroy it, they could at least split its power and send its pieces to separate corners of the world.

There were so many risks, and things had to get moving. Duo needed to be back under his eye.

He took a seat and sighed as Rashid stared at his big, big hands. He smiled, trying to prove that he wasn't exactly mad, just a little desperate.

"I know you like to know the why of things. Would it help you if I told you why I need him back? It's just that it's a very long lesson," Quatre said, although he wasn't really confident he could give Rashid all that information without sending the man into overload.

Rashid shook his head. "It's not that, Quatre," he said quietly. It sounded odd in comparison to his normal deep baritone. "You were friends, I remember that. Friendship is more than enough of a reason."

Quatre stared at him, watching the man twitch internally under his scrutiny. No one else would have known, but Quatre could sense it. Then Quatre twitched, visibly, as Rashid stayed silent.

"Where is he?" he asked, a little more violently than was necessary, but it had the desired effect.

"I don't know!" Rashid said, then threw up his hands and sat at Have's desk, leaning onto it. It seemed as though it were made for a dwarf under Rashid's impressive size. "He was dying and he was in pain! I thought I was doing him a favour!"

A favour? Quatre clutched the arm of his chair. "What did you do, Rashid?" he asked, coldly, but his voice was level.

"I moved him into the slavery rooms," Rashid said mournfully. "I thought the move, or at least the ship's travel, would put him out of his misery. Now you're saying he's alive, and I don't understand how but I feel responsible! I meant to send him Home, not send him into the torture world of some Karen white-skin."

Quatre put his head in his hands. Home was the Maguanac's picture of the afterlife, and it was a wonderful place from what he had learned, so Rashid's intentions were honourable, and more so, they were kind. Eternally dying, never to actually die, in chains in Yarani, or a serene, peaceful place amongst the souls of friends and family? He'd choose Home, any day.

But that was not where Duo had gone. No sorcerer could ever go Home. There was no Heaven, no limbo, no Hell and no Home, only rebirth. That was something Rashid needed to learn, but that could wait.

"I understand," he said, straining to force his tone not to show the stress he felt. "You did what you thought was right, and I would never want anyone to feel bad for doing someone a favour. If you felt bad for one favour, there's a possibility you'd never give favours again, and that would make you very lonely," Quatre smiled sofly. "Good intentions are never something to be ... punished..." Quatre fumbled with the word. Despite being as fluent in Yaanish as Rashid, that was where he had taken the skill from, Yaanish was not easy with certain words. It hadn't evolved from another tongue like the third tongue, which had words for everything. Rashid was looking at him quizzically, his body hunched as though daring him to punish him or even mention it again, while his mind knew that Quatre, although smaller and weaker, and with no fighter's reflexes, could still kill him without a lift of the finger.

"I couldn't find the right word," Quatre explained lamely. "I didn't mean punished by _me_, that isn't my place. Punished by yourself, or by some higher power maybe."

"Ahh," Rashid said, chuckling. "Sunburn," he said, and Quatre laughed out loud.

He thought it oddly appropriate that the Maguanac worshipped the sun. One of his first real conversations with Rashid had been learning of their religion and ceremonies, their differences to Karen culture. They allowed two men to marry. Men allowed their spouses, if they could not conceive, to attempt to conceive with a younger, more fertile man. They had an extremely intricate social system, based upon respect given to all, and in that respect for all and each other, they believed they respected the sun and its wishes for them. They weren't so dull as to believe that sunburn was the sun punishing them, as the sun's most avid worshippers were always burned from their constant time in the sun's rays. The word 'sunburn' was a play on the double meaning of the word for burn, Shraa'aakii, which meant both a burn from heat, fire or the sun, and also meant vengeance. The word Alura, 'sun', together with the word Shraa'aakii, Alura do Shraa'aakii, meant both sunburn and the equivalent of God's vengeance. The Maguanac used the word as a joke.

The mood successfully lightened, and all misconceptions erased, Rashid talked again, a little more securely than before. "I didn't check up on him. I knew that if I did, I would see him worse than before, and I would feel that I had to help him feel better. I knew that would just be stupid, considering the plan was to send him Home, not keep him here." Rashid took a deep breath. "When I didn't receive his body for burial, I went to see if he had somehow miraculously ... or tragically, depending on the perspective... I went to see if he had survived. I know the two of you had a trait for refusing to die when all logic says you should-"

Quatre let loose a sharp bark of sudden, sarcastic laughter. "You have _no_ idea. I've been stabbed in the heart, consecutively, more times than I could count and it still didn't happen." At Rashid's questioning, but not too surprised look, Quatre sighed. "The battle with the dark-skin Hunter."

Rashid grunted his acceptance of the meagre explanation. "He wasn't in the slavery rooms when I got there. It was just after the big canoe left."

Quatre, ever the teacher, smiled and shook his head. "Call it a boa – no – call it a 'ship'," he said, giving Rashid the word in the third tongue that would be easiest on Rashid's Yaanish mouth. "It looks nothing like a canoe, and if you built a canoe that size, the canoe would be faster and smoother too. They're two completely different vessels."

Rashid nodded. "'Ship'," he said, almost perfectly. He would have had trouble with the word boat. The Yaanish tended to pronounce the letter 't' like it was a word on its own, harshly. He would have said something along the lines of 'Boh...t'.

Quatre smiled, but Rashid seemed unconvinced. "I don't see much difference between the two. One is long, one is fat. They both go on water."

Quatre smirked. "You know how you transport your brides? In those big, heavy wooden things with wheels?"

Rashid nodded. "'Cataara.'"

Quatre chuckled. "The things named after me, yes. The difference is like travelling in one of those, to, say, travelling on a friend's shoulders."

Rashid settled back in his chair and stretched out. Even for a Maguanac he was huge. "It's been a long time since I've done that," he said. "But I understand. One is slow but big and steady, the other is fast and trustworthy but cannot carry many, or if it were carrying me, any at all."

He smiled, a big, lazy grin Quatre had only seen him wear after he had learned something new, or understood a concept properly. He snapped back to the original subject, he normally did, he was quite capable of running two tracks of thought at once. Their side tracks had their purposes, which was why Quatre allowed them and encouraged them to run their course. Rashid became very relaxed and pleased with his own skin when he felt he had became more than he had been before. This stage, after lessons, was a very good time to be in his company, as he opened up without restraint and told all he possibly could about anything anyone could possibly want.

"Duo, as you call him, wasn't in those rooms, and he also wasn't under my care for burial. When I'd put him there, I'd told the caretaker guard that he was mute, sick, and all the other information I could without telling him which room he had come from. I wanted him to have a good chance to get Home before Have found out he was missing from his cell. I had Shnae look through the papers, he didn't know what he was doing for me at the time, just thought I was checking up on one, and the papers said that he had been taken into slavery and left on the 'ship' with Yuy. I thought it was a good thing. I figured he was even more likely to go Home in the hold of that 'ship' than he was in the slavery rooms, and even better off there because when Have found out he wouldn't be able to get to him to put him back in that cell for quite some time."

Quatre huffed and leaned back. So Duo was in slavery, exactly as he had expected. He wasn't in their old cell and he wasn't on the island, so slavery was the only other place.

This at least explained how he had gotten out of the prison, but it didn't tell Quatre where he was. Quatre needed to know the location before he could teleport to him. Because Duo was not giving him a reliable empathic connection, he couldn't even try to pinpoint him using that.

Duo was only rarely emitting emotions to him, which worried him. The leech was giving him a decent (considering the last few years), steady stream of power, which meant that his body was weak, his magic weak as well, but it was consistently so, and it didn't match the empathic outbursts Quatre felt every so often. The last one, he'd been angry, insulted and annoyed. The insult had struck him hard, whatever it had been, and Quatre had a feeling it probably had something to do with slavery. All his childhood, people had been trying to force him into things. Creeps tried to back him into a corner, thugs tried to make him pay them taxes for them 'letting' him pickpocket in 'their' town, brothel whores tried to force him into their business, despite his being only a child.

Duo responded well only when he was treated as an equal and given a choice in whatever someone asked him to do. Obviously, after that burst of emotion, he had felt that someone was treating him as lesser than them, probably his 'master', and Quatre spat that word out in his mind like it was a brussel sprout.

Whatever had happened, Duo had been subdued so fast it was scary. Somehow, someone was making Duo stop feeling emotion. Someone was barging in on his feelings and making them stop.

It scared him.

He needed to track Duo from after that boat, he needed to get to Karen Miya and find the records they kept of where the slaves went. But he couldn't set foot in Karen without someone recognising him, and then things would become extremely difficult. He would have to fight his way through hundreds of people, palace guards, city guards, garrison guards, there were probably even a few Hunters at the capital. That was the dock that the sorcerers boarded the Kyumakie, after all. The Hunters escorted them there after their capture. There was no telling how many Hunters would be there, and he would have to fight.

Quatre couldn't enter another battle like before, he knew, and especially not one even closer to the capital city, potentially even inside it. The homes he might wreck, the people he might kill, the innocent lives he could destroy, there were too many risks.

He would have to find some other way to find out where Duo was.

He never had to. It would not be long before Chang Wu Fei would let him know.

* * *

Luna was nervous when Heero spoke to him the next morning. "I have to tell you something," he said. Luna immediately feared he'd done something wrong, as he was prone to fearing.

Heero did a rare thing and fidgeted. "Do you remember the Yarani warden? Have?"

Luna disliked where this was going. He did remember Have. He didn't want to. Aside from the fact that Have had been a rather slimy and unpleasant character, he wanted very much to forget everything before Heero, but that was not the case. He nodded slowly.

"I…" Heero stopped, rethought his words and started again. "I received his head in a jar last night."

Heero paused to gauge Luna's reaction. The poor boy immediately turned a bleached white, shook his head and looked fearful, putting his hands up as though to shield himself.

Heero roughly grabbed them and pulled them down. "It's not _your_ fault," he said. "Winner sent it to me."

Heero paused again. Luna looked away, biting his lip. It seemed as though he felt that he was responsible, despite the package being marked by Winner.

"Luna…" Heero started, pulling the slave to him, "I need to know what Winner might want from me. Can you help me with this?" he asked, slowly and carefully.

Luna hugged his way into Heero's chest, thinking. There were many things Quatre would want from Heero. A clean slate, permission to use magic … Duo…

"Is there any chance he would attack me personally? Would he want the crown?"

Luna shook his head. Quatre had far bigger things to worry about than Karen Miya. He cared very little about the crown, but he did care about who wore it, but not enough to take the matter into his own hands and take it for himself.

If Quatre judged Heero unworthy, which he would, because Heero was against magic, then Quatre would simply remove the crown from his head and place it on someone who fit his needs better.

What Luna couldn't figure out was why Quatre hadn't tried to rescue him yet. If Quatre had the strength to kill Have and mail his head in a jar to Heero, then surely he had the strength to try and rescue his old friend?

Luna sighed. Quatre would come for him. When he did he could smooth this entire mess out, let him know how he felt for Heero, although Quatre's empathic ability should have told him that already. Once they'd spoken he could convince Quatre that Heero was a good man, deserving of the crown, just rather prejudiced against magic. Quatre would understand that and leave them be.

But why hadn't he come to save him yet?

"Could it be you he wants?"

Luna nodded uncomfortably, holding himself closer to Heero, hoping that Heero would want to keep him even if it made Quatre angry.

Heero sighed. One last question needed answering. "Did he put that curse in your neck?"

Luna startled, pulling back to look at Heero. He had been completely unaware that Heero had known about the leech. From the wording he had used – curse – that showed that he didn't fully understand what it was, only that it was bad.

He nodded, knowing that he was giving Heero the wrong impression of events, but not knowing how to get around it. Quatre had placed it there, but it was not a curse, and it had not been an act of cruelty.

Heero shook his head. "How could you have been _friends_ with him if he would do such a thing to you?"

Luna shook his head and pressed himself back into Heero's chest, as though by hiding there he could avoid the question. Luckily, Heero dropped it, seeming to understand that the subject was sore. He assumed that his poor Luna had been tricked into it, lulled into security by Winner's friendly charm, then betrayed with such a curse. His dear Luna was probably still feeling sore from such a horrid act.

"It's alright," he said. "I won't ever let him near you."

Luna sighed. He adored his master's protectiveness, but the fact that the two of them could never truly communicate stung, deep down in the same place he kept his memories of Duo.

Luna would never need to speak with Heero, voice his opinions, his thoughts and his memories, but he knew that if he ever went back to how he was before he made the decision to be Heero's slave, things would not be that way.

It didn't matter, he summed up. Soon, Quatre would come find him. The first thing Quatre would do would be remove the leech, then the two of them would speak in private, Luna would explain what he wanted, Quatre would put the leech back and they would all go about their lives. Nothing had to change. Heero would keep his crown and his favourite mute slave. Quatre got to keep all of Duo's magic. And Luna got to stay with his master, happy, safe, voiceless and magicless.

He just had to wait for Quatre.

So he would wait.

And wait.

And wait.

* * *

"So, you were in charge of burial as well as guarding my door," Quatre said. It was early morning, just after breakfast, and this was the time he spent with Rashid. He loved it. Rashid ingested information like a lion ingests anything it sees, and he did it with the same vigour.

Rashid nodded. "Mm. I headed the burial team, there were eight of us."

Quatre nodded. "And were you in charge of digging us up as well?" he asked.

Rashid's eyes went wide. "Digging ... taking your bodies _out_ of the ground?" he asked, then got annoyed. "If someone dug you all back up, why did we have to bury you in the first place?" he growled.

Quatre tapped his foot, thinking of a long, long way to explain, a way with lots of little side stories, little extra bits of information. He finally settled on one. "Come, let's go outside," he said, standing up from his position, cross legged on the floor of Rashid's home. They went through his several adjoining tents and other simple shelters, then finally they left the abode, Rashid ducking to get out from his own intertwining tent palace. They were immediately in the sun and Quatre breathed it in, turning to face his source of life, his eyes closed in a peaceful expression. Quatre brightened considerably. He just _loved_ being outside.

He walked for a while until he found a spot underneath a tree he had seen a few times before. A big, healthy apple tree, its leaves offered only light dappled shade. He knelt underneath it and motioned for Rashid to follow. "Ever wondered why, when it rains, the ocean doesn't get deeper? Wondered why it doesn't get bigger, after all, it is being replenished, right? So why, after all these hundreds and hundreds of seasons that your people have been on this island, why hasn't the ocean grown and slowly made this island smaller and smaller until eventually, you all had to pack up in your canoes and find another land?"

"No," Rashid said. "Never wondered why, but it makes sense now that you mention it."

Quatre grinned. "If I leave a cup of water, right here, in the sunlight, sooner or later the water will be gone, even if no one tips the cup."

"Why?"

"The sun dries up the water," Quatre said matter of factly.

Rashid nodded. "Like leaving wet clothes outside, they dry out too."

"Exactly. The water doesn't just disappear, though, does it?"

Rashid grinned, getting off his knees to sit lazily in the grass. "Nothing disappears," he said. That had been the first thing Quatre had taught him. Nothing ever disappears.

"The water goes into the air, then rises up, into the sky," Quatre said, giving Rashid a smile, for the man had certainly learned the disappearing lesson well. "Then it comes back down-"

"Rain?"

Quatre grinned. Rashid gained a contemplating look. "It seems fitting that the sun protects us from flooding the ocean, and in doing so gives us the rain our plants need."

"It is fitting. Anyway, the point is, the water keeps moving, in one continuous circle. So does everything else."

Rashid nodded his understanding, so Quatre continued. "When a thing dies, animal or human, we'll use a human as an example. When a human dies, we bury him. If he's lucky, his body will slowly decay. It's not living, not eating, so it has no sustenance. It becomes a thing, nothing more. The soul inside the body has gone Home, and the body is just an object now, and when objects get old, what happens? They lose their strength. They get holes in them. Thick material becomes thin. The same thing happens to a corpse in the ground. Slowly, over time, the body disintegrates. But it doesn't disappear, does it?"

Rashid grinned. "Stupid question," he said.

Quatre laughed. "I know. The body becomes the ground that surrounds it. Sometimes maggots speed this all up and eat the body, and when it comes out of them, its perfect soil material, just like how cow dung makes grass grow better."

"Wait," Rashid muttered. "My father died long ago. His body is now helping plants grow?"

Quatre smirked. "Even more than that," he said, standing up. He motioned for Rashid to stay down, then reached above them and plucked an apple from their shade tree and tossed it to Rashid, who bit into it. "A man buried underneath an apple tree will feed that tree. That tree uses the sustenance it finds in that soil to make apples. And who eats those apples?"

Rashid chewed on his mouthful thoughtfully, staring at his apple. "It's all one big circle," he said. "My father was buried in the cow paddock. He liked the cows. He became the ground, then the grass, then the cow used the grass to make the milk we had with breakfast."

Rather than being disgusted with the thought of eating his father, Rashid was genuinely intrigued. "So even after I went to all the trouble of leaving his home, making myself independent, he's still feeding me."

Rashid shook his head, his dark eyes betraying him as he looked at Quatre. "I wish I had your eyes," he said. "I wish I saw the world as you did. I wish all people had a way to learn, to know the whys of the world." He took another bite of the apple.

Quatre smiled. "We're not done yet," he said simply. "This is where it gets interesting."

Rashid cocked his head to the side, raising a brow in invitation.

"A sorcerer's body enters the earth in the same way," he said. "Everything happens to his body the same way, but his magic is different. If magic decayed with the body and entered the earth, eventually it would find its way into all people. How, then, are sorcerers rare compared to people without magic? It's simple. _The magic doesn't enter the earth_."

"But it doesn't disappear," Rashid said, furrowing his brow. Nothing disappears. But what happened to the magic if it didn't enter the earth with the rest of the body?

"No, it doesn't. Which is why, after a year or two, the Hunters dig up the corpses you buried."

"To get the magic? But what use is it to them? They can't use it, and it's invisible. There's nothing different between your body and mine, and magic isn't something you can just reach out and take, otherwise they would have been doing that instead of bringing you here."

Quatre chuckled. "Magic is in the blood, and there's no way to tell by looking at our blood whether we have magic or not. But magic isn't a part of us. The magic we use doesn't belong to us, it is just another force of nature. Its part of the world we live in, but it's not a thing, like the air or the water. Its alive, it has a mind of its own, and a personality of its own as well. It can be docile as a dove, or fierce as a lion. It's like an animal, but every animal, no matter the species, always seeks out its own."

"So the magic always wants to find more magic? Then..." Rashid suddenly stopped, his confused, thinking expression evening out into one of understanding but shock and almost disbelief. "_Thrallstones?_"

Quatre grinned. "Oh, I like you Rashid. You're so smart. Now tell me, so I'm sure you understand, exactly what the continuous circle of magic is."

Rashid took a few breaths, rubbing his temples. "It starts in the sorcerer, then becomes a thrallstone. The thrallstone always seeks magic, so even if the sorcerer isn't dug out of the earth, eventually the stone would push its way out. Then, when it finally gets to the nearest sorcerer it can sense, it disappears ... but only to the eye. Then the magic goes back into the sorcerer... But if that's the case, then wouldn't the sorcerer the thrallstone found get the power of the one whose death made the thrallstone? Wouldn't there be sorcerers wandering around digging up other sorcerers, trying to become more powerful?"

Quatre shook his head. "There used to be. The thrallstone gives some extra power to the mage it finds, but a thrallstone is such a small amount of magic that when it's absorbed most mages can barely even feel it. There used to be mages who would search for them, contain them, then grind them up and make potions from many of them, but that recipe was lost when all the libraries were burned."

"And it's not in your telepathy connection?" Rashid questioned.

"The Ley can't store knowledge like that. All the Ley can deliver is innate knowledge, things that all other mages know. So, five hundred years ago, when the libraries were destroyed, everyone knew. So the Ley fed that information to any children who came along. But not everyone knew the exact recipe for a specific potion, so neither does the Ley. If any more than half of us mages forgot that the libraries were burned, the Ley would cease to know that too."

Rashid could never really understand the concept of the Ley. Noone not connected to it ever could.

The Ley was the birthchild of the great Aleri, SunChild of ages past. It was like a stream, always flowing at the ears and eyes of any mage, telling them in whispers what everyone else connected to it knew. It was designed to allow open communication, so that any mage could speak out on it and ask for help or advice and that all others would hear him. The Ley was how mages knew the paths of magic, how they knew what spell another mage was using even if they'd never seen it before, how they knew the things that had happened in the past. It was how the Silence Clause was kept in effect.

Every mage knew that their death awaited them if they spoke to mortals about magic, and so the Ley informed children new to magic.

Aleri would have been furious if he knew what his creation had been used for. It was no longer an open forum and a source of comfort and knowledge for children finding magic in their veins. It was no longer used in such a way. Where once voices had spoken in endless discussions on an endless amount of topics, silence now reigned.

The last time voices had spoken on the Ley was when the Silence Clause had been issued. The God of Death himself had said it, and the moment someone spoke, he banished them to the fires of hell. Anyone who answered a call on the Ley normally found themselves at the feet of Shinigami, to be executed or damned.

Or so it had been, long before Quatre was born. Quatre knew that it was no longer so, but the rest of the mages did not. Thus, the Ley continued to send outdated information, because as long as it sent it, people could not forget. Even if people were no longer being banished or damned, until someone spoke on the Ley and lived to tell about it, no one would believe that the Clause was no longer in effect.

Even now, weeks after Quatre had spoken on the Ley, the other mages were still too scared to join him on it. They probably thought that he had a death wish. He knew that even if he showed his aura on it, people would still not join him again. They were too afraid of forces stronger than he was.

"Then where does the rest of the magic come from, if not from thrallstones?" Rashid asked, pushing Quatre back to their previous topic. "Mages have magic even if there are no thrallstones. Where does that come from?"

Quatre sighed, stretching, then flung himself onto his back to stare deeply into the sun. He received no pain, the sun wouldn't punish its own child for looking at it.

"There," he said, pointing up. "And in the moon. But mostly from the sun. The sun _is_ the magic. We just borrow it. But we all need a gateway, a passage we can use to get to the magic. The sun is all the way up there, we need a way to get to it. Nature is far more in tune with magic than humans are. Most of us use nature to get to it, we tap into the trees and air and earth around us to connect to the sun or moon the way that they do. Half of us are specific about it, and will only use a certain element of nature to connect, but they can connect with that element better than others. Like Laki, the poor man we're building the room outside for. He connects with earth."

"So when the white-skins put him in an underground dungeon, he was surrounded by it. And it drove him mad," Rashid finished.

Quatre nodded. "Its possible that he was completely sane before coming here. He would have been very ill on the boat here though, with no earth to sustain him. That deprivation alone could have driven him mad, then to surround him with so much power he couldn't even think, it's really no wonder he lost himself."

"If he's separated from the magic will he become sane again?"

"That depends on how we go about separating them. I believe I can do it. It's not simple, because its been so long that he's been that way, but with enough time and enough work on my part it should get better."

Quatre sighed and looked out over the land. "Maybe in a hundred more years, he'll be able to go back into the dungeon with control over himself. Give a sane man that much magic and he could do great things. I wish I could be surrounded by my element on all sides."

Rashid looked up into the sky. "You draw straight from the sun," he said. "Without using nature to connect. How?"

Quatre smirked. "Where the sun's concerned, I _am_ nature. All I need is direct sunlight. Or perhaps that's all it is, that I use sunlight to connect to the sun. It doesn't change the fact that the sun gives me more than others. I'm his favourite."

Any other Maguanac might have taken this as blasphemy. "And your friend Duo? He takes from the moon, also without nature."

"More or less. The only difference is that they're in different spots. The sun rises in the east and falls in the west, so when the sun rose and fell, the tiny little window in our cell, facing north, never got any direct sunlight. The moon is in a different spot entirely, and sets in the southeast somewhere. At the right time of night, there was moonlight for Duo. Not much, and not for long, but enough. Not for me."

Rashid nodded slowly. "That circle is very complex," he said, sighing. "I don't know if I will remember that tomorrow."

"I will remind you, as many times as you need to be," Quatre said, smiling softly. "But while it is fresh in your mind, there's one more thing, something extremely important, that you need to learn. After I find Duo, he and I will need to leave to do something, and I will need to put you in charge here."

Rashid blinked twice, then stared at Quatre. "Me? And not one of the more powerful sorcerers you are training? I'm honored."

Quatre smiled again. "I know you like to know why, so before I leave, I have to tell you why I have to go. It's a very long, complicated story, but what I tell you now is something you have to understand to understand the story."

Rashid nodded. "Tell me, now, while the rest is fresh."

Quatre took a deep breath. "Certain sorcerers don't create thrallstones when they die. Their magic is so much that it could never fit, no matter how concentrated it became."

"Like your magic?"

"_Exactly_. My magic will create something that's very dangerous. So will Duo's, so will quite a few other mages. Several in this prison. Those things can't move the way thrallstones can, they're too big."

Rashid let out a great big breath of air, nodding shallowly with his brows knitted together. "What are they? What does the magic become?"

"Weapons," Quatre said. "Runed or warded weapons."


	24. The Mulberry Bush

Notes – I wanted to add something to the general knowledge of readers, which I would normally attempt to weave into the story, but unfortunately can't due to immersion issues.

This story takes place in medieval times, in approximately the 1900s. Confused? You should be.

At about 1300AD, mages got their act together and got massively organized, and integrated into human society. Once that happened, there really wasn't any need for technical growth, or anything at all.

The castle that Heero and Duo live in is six hundred years old, and has never had a structural failure of any kind. This is normal, considering the size of the project and the importance – at the time of its building, mages would have been currying favour with Sanq (at the time Karen Miya still belonged there). It's not impossible to imagine that during its erection, several mages were hanging around, doing much of the work, and using _a lot_ of protection magic. Heero's throne is actually imbued with an anti-death aura.

This knowledge has of course faded over the last couple of years. The fact that no king has ever died on his throne, they attribute to the fact that the Royal family is loved so much that no one wants to kill them (_or is it the other way around?)._

Technology and growth has been at a complete standstill for about 600 years. For the first hundred, magic integrated so well that it replaced technological growth. For the next hundred, that was when the shit hit the fan (which will be explained soon) and magic got out of control. That cultivated mortal's hatred of it. The problem is that all medieval science (alchemy) was viewed as witchcraft. So if you tried to make any kind of scientific advancement, you got burned at the stake.

Due to the existence of magic, this world will likely _never_ advance the way ours has, with the exception of morals and religion, which are more advanced than they were in our world at that time. When magic is bad, its very bad. When magic is good, it's very good. Those hundred years of magic in society caused permanent scientific and technological stagnation; however they also caused some pretty serious moral growth.

_Most_ mortals, especially in Karen Miya, which is especially magic heavy, are kind, loving, and trustworthy people. They are also quietly religious, but because _everyone_ is quietly religious, there's very little preaching or pushing of the subject. Everyone is pretty willing to accept homosexuality, as religion doesn't expressly forbid it (again, God only knows whether or not some gay mage just went around changing up everyone's bibles).

In conclusion, this medieval period has lasted a _long_ time and will continue to. After all, who needs a phone when mages have the Ley? Who needs a car when a mage can enchant your horse? Who needs medicine when you have healing? And once magic became hated, all those things became hated with it. Anything better than natural is unacceptable.

* * *

MoonChild

Chapter Twenty Four – The Mulberry Bush

WuFei barged into Heero's rooms, with the look of one who had seen a ghost. "We're dead!" he said, breathing heavily, then dropped a paper in front of the King, who promptly saw the handwriting and cursed internally, then saw the message and cursed externally.

"_Fornication!_"

_To my correspondent Chang WuFei;_

_Thank you for letting me know exactly where my second is._

Enclosed was a letter in WuFei's handwriting, the letter WuFei had mentioned, where he had threatened Have for allowing Luna out of prison.

There was an unspoken knowledge in the air. If there had been any doubt that Winner had been out to get Heero before, there certainly wasn't now.

Heero received a litany of threats after this. Quatre always seemed to refer to Luna as his second, as though the two were a team. Winner would send Heero letters, some seeming diplomatic, some simply angry rants, all demanding he give Luna back to him, as though Luna had belonged to him before he had belonged to Heero.

It made Heero want to be wary of what exactly the two had shared while imprisoned.

Quatre never stopped reminding Heero that he could simply teleport into the castle at any moment and force him to give up Luna. The only question was why he hadn't done that already.

WuFei reasoned that he was scared. Winner had already lost control of his magic once, and if he came to the capital again there would be plenty enough Hunters to ensure a battle. If Winner went mad in battle, then he would doubtlessly ruin his own diabolical plans, whatever they were.

Winner would not come to Karen, so long as there were Hunters there. And Hunters there were many.

The profession was no longer viable, what with there no longer being a prison to send the mages to. The castle had a dungeon they could have used in the meantime, but who would want _more_ mages near the capital city and the King?

Luckily, or unluckily, this was no longer a problem. Mages were rapidly disappearing from the countryside. Hunters arrived in Karen with tales of being so close to banding their catch when all of a sudden, a group of five more mages, working in unison, would teleport in, whisk away their prey and leave not a trace.

Winner was collecting mages.

The only good thing about this was that it meant that Heero's villages didn't have to deal with being pillaged or burned, as they had been dealing with for centuries of mages not yet caught by Hunters, but it served as a fearful omen.

In the end, there was nothing anyone could do about it. Quatre had organised the mages and was gathering them all, though what purpose it served Heero did not understand. Luna had told him that Quatre would not want his crown, but Luna seemed less and less confident in what he thought he knew about Quatre every day.

The blonde mage that had shown himself to them a week earlier was not forgotten, but they had yet to hear anything from or about him. No demands had been made, but he was still plotting. The biggest question about him was; who had sent him?

The threats from Winner and his attack seemed to be too close together to be a coincidence. Even Luna started considering that Winner may have sent him.

Some things about this theory didn't make sense. Luna knew that Quatre wanted him alive and on his side, so why would he send someone to hurt him? Send someone to hurt Heero, that made sense, but to hurt Heero by hurting Luna, that was not a strategy that was viable to Quatre.

But when they all thought long and hard about who else might have hired the blonde, no name filled their heads but Quatre's. No normal, non-magical person would have gotten involved with the blonde at all. Though there were plenty of mages who would love to hurt Heero, there were few that they knew by name except Quatre, and even fewer who stood to gain anything from hurting him now that Yarani was no longer holding them and their friends prisoners.

And Quatre made it clear to Heero that he was not pleased with him. Quatre wanted him dead and buried, and he wouldn't mind if he had to do it himself. He was the only person that they could point blame at.

The blonde assassin, whose talent it was to poke around in people's minds, already knew that they were leaning towards this assumption. He pushed them along this path, ever so gently, until the only one still questioning it was Luna.

* * *

Trowa, having obtained some sort of weird fascination with Luna, was present when Irea organized to have Luna try to stand. He watched over it like a hawk.

Heero, who had obtained a slightly different obsession with Luna, was the one to stand at Luna's side and hold him steady. Irea watched over them both like a tutting mother.

Luna found himself wondering, as the deathweed he had been given didn't take nearly half of the pain in his feet away, how on earth normal humans _coped_.

The leech was doing its job, and he had only enough magic to speed up his recovery, not nearly enough to do any real healing. His feet were basically doomed to heal in the same way that a mortal's would, which meant he couldn't just laze around and wait for them to heal magically as he normally would, he had to go through rehabilitation.

He had to move them enough to recover blood flow to the muscles, then use those muscles in order to strengthen them. Both healing processes irritated the wounds and muscles themselves, and that meant only one thing: pain.

Basically, the entire idea of this was to get him out of bed, something he really didn't like that much as Heero's bed was something he liked far too much to leave without reservations. Irea had strengthening excersizes which were more practical for him to do, but currently all she wanted was him out of bed.

So he leaned heavily on Heero, with at most a third of his weight on his feet, and let Heero direct him to the bedroom door, rest, then to the common room's lounge, where he was allowed to sit back down. Irea gave him no peace, instead studying his feet after the exertion, proclaiming them alright, and insisting they head to the balcony.

Once outside the doors, he considered prodding Heero into helping him to the railing. He knew he could probably weasel such a favour from his master, but the mere thought of the look on Heero's face when Luna flung himself over the side convinced him that perhaps it was not the best way to go.

His feet still tried to make him believe otherwise.

Irea finally let him have a real rest on the outside seats. He was starting to get a headache, and had been faint and dizzy since he had first stood.

Heero was the one to finally rescue him from the evil blonde witch's tyranny. Luna gave him such a grateful look afterward that Heero wondered why he hadn't done it earlier. Heero sent Irea and Trowa away, and Irea only left after being promised that Luna would walk back to bed and not be carried. Luna's appreciation was abundantly clear when Heero gave him a small smirk that told him quite clearly that he had been lying through his teeth.

Heero lowered himself onto the seat with his slave, placing an arm over his shoulder and letting him settle into his side.

They stayed there, staring in silence at the sea. Luna had grown up inland, in a village called LenBrack, and had seen the sea only a few times. The first had been with the Hunter, when boarding the boat to cross the sea to prison. He had been kept in the hull then, and hadn't seen the sea, only heard it through the creaks and groans of the ship. He would have seen it again when leaving the ship, but that was hazy again and he honestly didn't even remember entering the prison.

He had seen it again when leaving the ship with Heero, but he had been so focused on everything else, and having a minor traumatic attack at the sight of the crowds on the beach, that he hadn't really taken it in.

The sea was beautiful. It was almost as beautiful as the lake by LenBrack, where he and the other children had gone swimming. He wondered whether he would ever swim again. Heero was unlikely to let him near water deep enough, fearful that he would drown, and Luna couldn't ease those fears by telling him he could swim.

The lake had been filled with all sorts of fish, and every now and then they would catch one by pure luck. A fresh fish cooked over a fire Duo would summon was easily the best they ever ate.

New members to the gang would be apprehensive around Duo at first, some would even accuse him of having the Devil's hands, but they easily got over it when his Devil's hands kept them from dying of the chill in the night.

Someone had found out. A healer in town had been studying the plague from Chalc, trying to find an antidote or preventative should it ever be carried across the border into Karen. Infected chickens were imported and cooked, poorly, so that the street kids wouldn't be suspicious, then left outside the butcher's house for the carrion bird he was trying to tame.

Naturally the bird never got to them. No street rat under the great Solo would ever have his meal given to a bird. They slept with full bellies that night, and never woke in the morning.

Luna knew that he had never been a healer. He could heal, yes, but healing was not where his talent lay. He worked best with fire, runes, dark magic and charms. The plague had taken every single street rat bar him. His body had far too much magic lying around to succumb to a simple disease. It was likely that the magic in his blood had destroyed the plague before his immune system even knew it was there, which was probably a part of the reason he was so ill now. His natural human defences had really never had the opportunity to strengthen; and the leech was forcing him to rely on them.

Then Father Maxwell had taken him in. A part of him suspected that the Father had always known what he was, and taken him in anyway, simply to prove a point. Father Maxwell believed strongly that God never put people into boxes. He believed that one touched by the Devil, or one that practiced the art of the Devil, did not necessarily belong to the Devil, and that God evaluated everyone separately. He believed that accusing a sorcerer of being evil was only appropriate if the sorcerer had done something evil.

He also believed that children, as a whole, were not evil. Luna smiled at the time he had flourished under Father Maxwell. The Father had taught him all about heaven, and told him about where his gangmate and first ever friend Solo was, and that when Duo died, he would join him. Duo had been depressed at that, because he knew by that age a fair amount of sorcerer lore. His soul would never reach heaven, it would simply be reborn when he died.

Father then told him about where exactly the men who had planted the chicken were going to go, and about how it was unwise to seek revenge for anything, ever, because that was God's job, and God was far better at it than any of them.

Sister Helen had braided his hair. Father Maxwell had taught him hymns. All had been well until _they_ came.

Howard and his wife, Ann, were of a class that Duo never knew what to expect from. They were just between the wealthy and the people that only just got by. They had three hot meals a day and had the money to spare to feed and raise children. People in that class either felt bad for street rats, or felt other things entirely and in a completely different bodily region for them.

Father told Duo to sit still and pay attention. Sister Helen had groomed him well that morning, his hair was as impeccable as it could be without a good wash, which they couldn't afford, and he wore the clothes he was only allowed to wear when singing at a Church sermon.

He reacted badly when told that they wanted to adopt him. Apparently, Howard and Ann had been regular donators and visitors to the Church orphanage for some time, and had been trying to find the perfect child to take home with them, as they couldn't conceive.

Duo had spat a very nasty remark about that being a sign from God telling them not to have children, and said that he didn't want two rich impotents taking him away from his real home.

They had left. He had the worst punishment he had ever had in his life. Father Maxwell didn't speak to him for a full day.

Howard and Ann returned the next day. Howard took him aside with Father Maxwell, kneeled down to look him in the eye, and said quite plainly that he liked a kid with attitude. He said it meant he wasn't a lapdog that would simply roll over and beg to be stepped on. He said it made him someone worth talking to.

It all seemed so surreal, when Howard promised, taking the Bible from Father Maxwell's belt and swearing with his palm on it, that he would never force Duo anywhere he didn't want to go, and that should he choose to go home with them, he could do so when he wanted to and never have to completely leave the Church behind.

Duo knew that the pair could offer him that which the church could not – a warm bed, three full meals a day and an _education_, so it seemed like the decision was lain out for him. But for some reason he just had this need not to go. He felt like he had to stay at the church. Father Maxwell suggested they go out, spend some time together, and assured Duo that they would be coming back that afternoon. It was the first time he had every disobeyed his intuition, and a mage's intuition is not something to be scoffed at. Duo would never disobey it again.

Duo barely remembered anything about that outing. All he knew for sure was that he left not wanting to go at all, not wanting anything to do with these people, and when he returned, he was sitting on Howard's shoulders, laughing as Ann mercilessly tickled his feet. He felt like he had known them forever, felt like he would know them forever. He longed to know what his room in their house was like. Whether Ann's porridge really tasted like Eden's apples. What the honey in the hive at the back of their yard tasted like, and what a mulberry bush was and why they had three.

Then the church came into view, and it was undercooked chickens all over again. It was on fire, flames racing up the steeple. Duo knew that the inside of the building had to be worse off than the outside, everything was wood inside while the outside was all stone. Sister Helen and the orphans were nowhere to be seen, and somehow everyone knew that they were all still inside.

Howard picked him up from his shoulders and set him down, then took Ann by the hand. "Both of you stay out here. The pastor and I will be back out with everyone else soon. Duo," he called, wrenching Duo's attention from the burning building to him. "You're my son now. As your father, I want you to promise me that you _will not go in there_."

Duo numbly nodded, and they both raced inside. He and Ann stayed outside, Ann on her knees holding him against her breast. She told him tales of Howard's bravery, of how he had once burned his hand on one of her pans. He had no fear of fire and it couldn't hurt him. She sang him a lullaby about a unicorn.

Like her husband before her, she called his name, forcing his attention to her. "You're my son now, Duo," she said. "Promise me you won't follow me in there."

He nodded again, and then she was gone. Not a minute later he heard a crash, as though something vital inside the building had collapsed.

An hour later, Duo still sat staring at the building, heeding his promise. There were no trees or foliage around the church, nothing for the fire to spread to, so he watched the fire eat all of its fuel, the roof cave in, and the steeple fall to one side. The stones that made the outer skeleton of the structure turned black with soot and ash, but few of them moved.

Duo could not remember anyone from the town coming to investigate the smoke or put out the fire. The church was somewhat removed from the town, only a short walk away for the sunday sermon, it was not far away enough that people wouldn't have noticed.

When there was nothing left, Duo stood and left. He picked a direction and walked, continuously. He didn't eat, he gained sustenance from the moon only. When he woke after collapsing mid-stride, he picked a direction and started walking again. He followed his instincts, ignoring everything. If he chanced upon another human while he walked, he ignored them unless they hurt him, whereupon he would set them on fire then ignore them.

Luna tossed and turned in Heero's arms, opening his eyes slowly. He wondered when they had returned to his master's room.

Heero stroked his hair affectionately. "Irea can make or find a tea that will make sure you don't dream like that again," he said quietly.

Luna suddenly couldn't understand how he had suppressed his mourning over this for so long. He buried his head into Heero's neck, surprised when almost at the exact same moment that he realised that he wanted his pillow, Heero had it in his hands and was pressing it into his arms.

And then he cried.

* * *

Irea came bursting into his commons without even a knock. Heero thought it odd, so he looked at her, and saw the reason why.

She carried on her arm a Rapier bird, its right wing feathers died blue, its left gold. The bird sat on her arm as though it cared not that they were inside, as though it cared not for any of the new things it were seeing. It was unimpressed.

Of course, being a Rapier bird, it had probably seen things far more exotic than Heero's commons.

A small scroll was attached to its left leg, and Irea still held in her hand a slightly bigger scroll. Heero could see a faint trace of blue ink through the rolled up paper.

Heero had always wanted a Rapier bird. Like their weapon counterparts, they were small and fast, and unlike Heero's hawk, they could keep that speed over long distances. Rapiers were native to Chalc, and they were incredibly valuable in wars and skirmishes because they could deliver messages over short distances as fast as a hawk, and they were smaller so had less chance of being shot down. They had two other purposes; urgent messages to civilians and urgent messages to royalty or nobility. For civilians, the corresponding wing to the leg the letter attached to was died blue. For royalty it was gold.

"Right wing is always delivered first," Irea said. "The bird's main correspondent was _me_. Isn't that odd?"

She set the bird down in front of Heero, who reached out a hand for the bird to survey and eventually nibble on while Irea untied the message from its leg.

Heero took it, grunting, "What do the Catalonias want with us?" in the most annoyed tone he could muster.

"It's not the Catalonias," Irea said.

Heero gave her a quizzical look and started unfurling the paper, then stopped after seeing something he was entirely certain he didn't want to see. Treize Kushrenada's emblem, a stamp of a red rose in full bloom, glared up at him on the paper.

"Tell me this isn't about Milliardo," he said, looking at the letter Irea still clutched in her hand. "If he got sick, bad enough for them to be asking your advice, while he's a prisoner there, we'll never hear the end of it."

"That would be bad," Irea agreed. "But he mentioned nothing about it to me."

"_He_? Kushrenada wrote it personally?"

Irea nodded. Her brow was strained slightly, as though she were following another thought as well as this conversation.

Heero wondered why she hadn't left. This was a communication involving a King, she didn't really have a right to be there.

Unless the two letters were somehow related.

_Dear Prince Yuy,_

_I recall hearing a rumour that you ascended the throne, but I have no time currently to check my facts. Please forgive any mistake I may make._

_My daughter, MarieMaia, is showing the first signs of an epidemic currently sweeping my area. Most of the people with the illness last only a month, two at best, before death claims them or they defeat it – at a cost._

_MarieMaia has been complaining of sharp pains in her toes, the first sign that she will lose the use of her legs. She is only ten years old. I could not bear for my only child to become an invalid, or worse, so I am riding with all haste to the Healer rumoured to be the best in the known world._

_I understand you and your Kingdom hold a neutral view to Chalc and Sanq, so any hostility you may hold toward me and my part in our conflict is something I understand and will not think any less of you for. However my daughter is neutral, just like you, and furthermore she is a child, completely innocent to all the goings on of the world, so I beg of you to allow her the chance to see your Healer._

_If you could house us, or even only my daughter, while we stay to hopefully see your Healer, it would be much appreciated, however I would understand completely if you choose not to. We can stay in the city if you do not want us near you._

_We are already riding at full haste, I write to you while my companions exchange our tired horses for new ones. We will not be resting ourselves, aside from five hours each night._

_We should reach Karen in fourteen days, forgive me but I haven't the time to calculate what that will be when the bird reaches you._

_I will be bringing Prince Milliardo Peacecraft with me, and I know that will probably cause the Catalonias to banish if not kill me. He is very well liked by MarieMaia, and I feel that if this is to be her last few weeks, she should be allowed all the people and things she desires._

_If you wish to take the Prince from my care, I will not stop you. I will only ask that MarieMaia be allowed to see him._

_This bird will carry your answer back to us. Please be swift in your reply. If you require time to consider, please send the bird back with that as your answer. If you will not allow us to see your Healer, please tell so with all haste, so that I may take MarieMaia home, to live out her days, however few there may be, in the comfort of her home._

_Sincerely,_

_Duke Treize Kushrenada_

_AMillionPeaces_

"He got Peacecraft to _sign_ it," Heero said incredulously. "Either he had the gall to make Peacecraft sign, knowing that if I said no I'd be forfeiting all my agreements with Sanc, or Milliardo actually does like his daughter and wants our help."

Irea sighed. "The poor girl. If she's actually sick, or if she's not just made up, then she is in a lot of pain and discomfort. He listed every symptom here," Irea unfurled her letter. "The Prince wrote a segment here, it seems real to me, not fabricated. He calls the child May," she said, showing Heero the page, pointing to where the handwriting changed from Kushrenada's to Peacecraft's.

Irea's letter was basically the same, but longer with the details of MarieMaia's illness. Heero skimmed over it, pausing to feel sorry for the girl, before realizing something _beyond_ terrible.

The dates. Once he calculated in the Rapier bird's flight time and minused it from the fourteen days Kushrenada had said it would take...

Treize Kushrenada's arrival would almost certainly overlap with Zechs Merquise's visit.

"Fornication under consent of the King!"

* * *

A week passed, and every day Irea would force a grumpy and meekly protesting Luna to his feet to walk to the balcony. She said fresh air and the increased blood flow of moving was good for him.

Regardless of the fact that she was right, and Luna knew it, he hated it.

At least, he did, up until the fourth day, when Heero decided he'd had enough of watching Luna be miserable about it.

Heero told him, quite seriously, the morning of the fourth walk outside, that he was about to demonstrate exactly _why_ he was in politics.

That was when the subconscious mindfuck began.

Luna understood it when it was happening, he even comprehended exactly what was happening in his brain, but what astounded him was that Heero could mess with his mind in a way he had only thought possible to Mind Melder mages.

It was entirely benevolent, of course. Heero was nothing if not a diabolical benevolent genius.

After walking to the balcony on the fourth day, Heero sent Irea away rather forcefully, then sat him down on the large couch. He then proceeded to _assault_ him with all kinds of completely innocent romantic advances.

They would stay out there for at least an hour each morning, and during that time, Heero would relentlessly pamper him, compliment him, kiss him and hold him. At some point someone would bring them out a tray of sweets and tea, and Heero would handfeed them to Luna.

At first Luna didn't know what to make of it, except that it was the most pleasant thing he had ever endured. Then it happened again on the fifth day, except this time, with a shoulder massage, and then his master brushed his hair.

On the morning of the sixth day, Luna understood, but only as he was halfway to the balcony with a smile on his face.

He was a slave to the most diabolically manipulative person in the world.

He also now _loved_ Heero's balcony.

By the seventh day, near all of Luna's inhibitions were gone. Heero sat in an armchair on his ridiculously huge balcony, and Luna sat across his lap, cuddled into him as close as he could get. There was no fear there, not after the last few days, and there was nothing but happiness. All his little fears, about Quatre, about the blonde assassin, about his master, had faded peacefully into nothingless, because Heero had put them there.

His master was rubbing soothing circles into his lower back, but it wasn't necessary. He was a gooey, boneless puddle of relaxation.

He pushed his nose into his master's neck, smiling wide, where Heero could feel it against his jugular. As a response, Heero turned and kissed his forehead.

Luna had an odd desire at that point. He had half a mind to offer Heero the use of his body again.

He knew for a fact that if Heero tried anything sexual, he'd accept, no matter the situation, but offering was something different.

The first time he had offered, it had been spur of the moment and from an inane and desperate desire to please. He had relaxed since then, and had taken Heero's promise to heart.

'_Not now. When you want it.'_

The thought sprung to mind that he could never truly want something he didn't fully comprehend. He barely remembered the first time. He certainly hadn't had much of an education on it as a child, other than words of warning and advice on how to run away. He knew it was supposed to feel good – he could remember that from the first time – but he didn't really understand how or why. He had spent the part of his life that he would have asked those questions as a sleeping mute in a prison.

He decided he would wait. Heero would show him how it all worked.

* * *

My namesake is on her way! Huzzah!


	25. Svelte Is A Pyromaniac

Chapter Twenty Five – Svelte Is A Pyromaniac, And Nobody Really Minds

* * *

Luna sat fidgeting at Heero's desk, ambivalent. He had been told when Heero left to wait there for a Hunter named WuFei, but had not been told why. A part of him was incredibly pleased with himself for walking there all on his own, as his master followed, ready to catch him, and smiling at him with intense and obvious pride.

Another part, which grew with every passing moment, was scared witless. Heero had left without further explanation, and the implications of a Hunter coming to see him were simply not good.

When WuFei entered, he took one look at Luna and scowled. Luna's heart skipped a beat. He knew that scowl, that foreign face. The man in white was here to see him! WuFei stalked to the desk and sat unceremoniously opposite him, putting a pile of papers in front of him.

Luna noticed they were all blank.

WuFei sighed and stared at Luna's fidgeting hands. The man in white – WuFei, Luna reminded himself – wasted no time with introductions or even perfunctory greetings. "Yuy – your master - didn't tell you why I'm here." It was more of a statement than a question. He huffed. "Nobility," he scowled. "Totally oblivious."

Luna smirked in agreement, then caught himself and stopped.

"I'm not here to punish you," WuFei said quietly. "You have yet to require punishment."

Luna's relief was obvious, even to a man such as WuFei, who frequently admitted to being emotion-blind.

WuFei shook his head sadly, and a little bit of bitterness crept into his face. "I'm retiring," he said finally. "No more Hunting for this old man." At a glance to Luna, who remained passive, waiting for him to continue, WuFei did. "I was going to be a scholar, before I managed to get caught up with your kind." He gestured to the parchment on Heero's desk. He cleared his throat. "I know four languages and can write in three. The only reason I can't write in the fourth is because the Yarani natives have yet to develop letters." He smiled wistfully. "There are all sorts of strange things to learn with languages and letters. The third tongue, this one, is the only known language that just makes up names for stuff. The Yarani island is called Alura'do'nae . It means 'Home of the Sun'. The people call themselves the Maguanac. The word Yarani was just pulled out of the behind of some bored cartographer. Chalc's people call their Kingdom Lairn."

Luna was leaning on the desk, as though moving closer to WuFei would increase the amount he learned, just as it increased the volume of WuFei's voice. WuFei smiled, not a smirk, not wistful in any way, just pleased.

He used to do the exact same thing.

"I'm going to be teaching you letters, and whatever else Yuy decides he wants you to know. He's very particular about who he lets near you, you know. Doesn't want you to have a tutor he doesn't know. So the two of us are going to get to know each other again, which is a good thing," WuFei's eyes flicked to Luna's heavy steel bands, "if only for Yuy's sanity."

The more he spoke to Luna the more comfortable he felt with having him near the King. Luna didn't seem to react at all to that comment, just gave a little nod of understanding, as though he thought it were a fair idea. As though he didn't really mind if Yuy didn't trust him, just that if so, it would be good to have WuFei around to mellow out his discomfort.

"One of the main reasons Yuy wants you to learn letters is so you can tell him your name," WuFei went on, pulling one of the papers from the stack and placing it in front of him. "It would take a fair while for you to learn enough letters to spell it for us, so I'm going to take a shortcut. I will go through every sound of this language, and you stop me when I make one in your name. First name first, last name we will do after. Understand?"

At Luna's nod, WuFei went on. "So, for me, the sounds would be 'w', 'oo', 'f', and 'ay'." Luna kept nodding. "Let's start."

WuFei went through the alphabet, saying each letter in every way it could be pronounced. Luna signalled to him on the very first sound he made, 'aa'. WuFei wrote down the letter A, then asked Luna where the sound was in his name. "Start, middle or finish?" he said, holding up his left hand for start, both hands for middle, and right for finish.

Luna reached out and tapped his right hand.

It took a while before he was stopped again, at L. Luna tapped his left hand before WuFei even had to ask. It was then WuFei started getting suspicious. Started with L and ended with A? Too much of a coincidence.

He was stopped again on N, then Luna held up both of his hands, signalling the middle, with a weird and almost mischievious smile. WuFei tapped his fingers against the desk, staring Luna down.

"Are you doing what I think you're doing?" he asked, a little annoyed.

Luna grinned and nodded.

"I meant your name before here. Did you misunderstand me?"

Luna shook his head.

"You understood me and you're still doing this?"

Luna nodded.

"Your name couldn't _possibly_ have been Luna before, and Yuy just happened to pick the exact same name."

Luna shook his head.

WuFei sighed. "Alright, from the beginning again. This time, the name from _before_."

Luna did the strangest thing then, something unexpected from his previous behaviour. He scowled, shook his head, then folded his arms over his chest and looked away from WuFei, stubbornly refusing to look back.

WuFei just didn't get it. "You're not going to tell me are you?"

Luna shook his head, nose in the air, like a stubborn child.

WuFei gave up, and should have been glad he did. Luna did not want anything of Duo to be known, lest his old self resurface.

And at the time, neither did Duo. Had WuFei pushed the matter, he may well have pried a rune mage from his safe hiding place, namely, from behind Luna – and a rune mage pried from safety is a rune mage one wants to be far, far away from.

But Duo would not be able to hide behind Luna forever. One can only restrain Duo Maxwell as long as he wants to be restrained, and time, food, comfort and love were slowly but surely healing him of all the wrongs done to him.

Duo Maxwell was doing one of the things he did best – hiding. But not for long. Soon, he would want to run again.

* * *

In the Parlour, Heero spoke with Relena and Tsu, who claimed to be completely dumbfounded as to why Luna was still alive, let alone getting better, when WuFei appeared at the door.

"By all rights of magic, he should be dead by now. Dead three times over, even," Svelte said, his expression confused. "As for your theory of drawing magic from the moon, that's just … ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" Relena questioned. "But not impossible?"

Heero shushed them, but Relena's point had been made. "Any luck?" he asked WuFei hopefully.

"Not an inch," WuFei grumbled. "You really know how to pick them, Yuy. First the pyromaniac-"

"Hey!" Tsu said. "I'm not a pyromaniac!"

WuFei ignored him. "Then this Luna, who is refusing to tell his name. Complete and utter refusal, like some sort of spoiled child."

"Refusing?" Heero muttered. "That doesn't seem like him at all."

"Sure it does," Trowa said.

Everyone jumped but Heero, who was used to it by now, and just glanced up at the rafters. "When did you get here?" he asked.

"I followed Chang," Barton said, hooking his knees over a sturdy plank of wood and proceeding to hang upside down.

"You're very strange, Barton, has anyone ever told you that?" WuFei asked.

Trowa glanced at Heero and grinned. "Every day."

"Why does it make sense to you?" Heero asked.

Trowa shrugged. "He likes you," he said, as though it explained everything.

At the blank looks from everyone in the room, Trowa elaborated. "He's not doing this by halves. You brought this on yourself, you know," he said, looking at Heero. "You're the one that never accepts anything but exactly what you want. So naturally, because he likes you, he's being exactly that. That means being _Luna_, not whoever he was before."

Heero sputtered for a few seconds. "You – I – I'm not _that_ manipulative! I didn't do that!"

Everyone stayed silent, contemplating this, until the Princess spoke. "How do we make him stop it then?" she asked.

Bulging eyes turned on her from every face in the room. "Stop it?" WuFei questioned. "Why ever would we want him to do that?"

Relena let out a disgusted sigh. "You can't just let him go on pretending to be someone he's not!"

"Sure we can," WuFei said. "Look at Tsu," he said, gesturing to the blonde man at the Princess' side. "He's pretending not to be a pyromaniac, it's working for him."

"I'm not a pyromaniac!" Svelte insisted.

"Exactly," WuFei grinned.

"Besides," Trowa muttered, "What would you say? 'Sorry, kid, it's been fun, but I'd like you to stop being a perfect, obedient concubine now?' Yes, I can really imagine you doing that, Yuy."

"Over my dead body," Heero growled. "How do we even know that he's _pretending_ to be perfect? Everyone just assumed that somewhere along the line, he decided to be exactly what I wanted him to be, but he's been that all along."

"This is true," Trowa said. "If he did just all of a sudden decide to be the perfect slave, he really hasn't changed that much from what you said he was before."

"So basically, what you're saying is that he decided to be a perfect slave, but it wasn't really that hard for him, or much of a change at all?" Relena huffed. "No one is a naturally perfect slave, Heero. It completely defies human nature."

Relena suddenly seemed a bit pale, as if the thought of it made her physically ill.

"But not mage nature," Svelte said suddenly. "It actually makes a lot of sense."

Very suddenly, the entire room went dead silent, as everyone stared at Svelte murderously for even suggesting it. Svelte sighed. "I can't believe I'm telling you this, but it's not like that suicidal maniac," he pointed to WuFei, "hasn't figured it out already."

WuFei just nodded calmly and explained further. "Magic always tries to survive in whatever way it sees fit. If his magic is the kind that depends on a situation - healing, for example, requires someone else to heal – then the magic will attempt to keep him in a situation that gives him the most survivability. If Luna is a healer, then he would be perfectly comfortable in this situation, knowing that the entire kingdom is bound by law to protect him. He has plenty of fighters for him he can hide behind and if things get bad, he can heal them."

"He most likely hasn't analysed it that far. It took me several months to figure out why I hated Yarani but was perfectly happy on the Kyumakie. Boats are made of wood," Svelte said.

"I can't believe they didn't put you in iron gloves. You could have given everyone on that boat a Jirean funeral," Wufei said disprovingly.

"I'm not familiar with that custom," Relena said dryly.

"It's an ancient Jirean rite for heroes. They are sent out to sea on a wooden raft, then archers dip their arrows in flame and light them on fire," Heero said, equally as dryly, unimpressed with the idea of Svelte or any other mage burning _his_ ship to nothingness.

"Fwoosh!" Svelte said, making a motion with his hands to imitate fire. "That's how I want to die. Jirean funeral's are the _best_."

Everyone stared at him as though he were completely mad, which, in a sense, he was. "And you say you're not a pyromaniac," Wufei drawled mockingly.

"It's not the _pyro_ that offends me, it's the _maniac_. There's nothing manic about it. I am perfectly in control of my sanity," Svelte answered. "If I hadn't been, I would have smoked the entire Kyumakie on the trip home. But I didn't, I stayed in control and waited till I was away from mortals and facing away from a boat made entirely out of wood. I am known for making rational decisions."

"Except for silence."

It was incredible how the moment WuFei mentioned it, it happened. Absolutely everyone fell completely silent, as WuFei glared at Tsu and Tsu clenched his fists and jaw.

"I've told you a thousand times," Svelte said, "it's not going to happen."

"Please, not this again," Relena mumbled. "The two of you argue all day every day, and nothing ever comes of it. Just leave it alone. Svelte is just like _every other mage_; he's not going to say a word about it."

WuFei shook his head. "Princess, it isn't like I do this to annoy you. It's very important that we at least attempt to learn about magic. The more we know, the better prepared we can be."

"I can respect that, Lord Chang, I truly can, but it's _pointless_. He's not doing it just to annoy you either. Can't you see he's honestly _scared_ of what will happen if he talks?"

WuFei turned a sarcastic, taunting eye to Svelte. "So scared of the big bad Silence that he has to hide beneath his mistress' skirts. Oh, how terrifying it must be to be you, to live in a castle with at least one hundred armed guards between yourself and any point of entry. How afraid you must be."

Svelte raised an eyebrow, refusing to rise to the bait. "Afraid enough that your little insults don't stand a chance. Also, _nobody_ gets beneath my Mistress' skirts. Least of all a humble slave such as myself."

"Any conversation that strays toward my skirts has gone much too far," Relena said haughtily, to which Heero nodded in agreement. "Brother dear, when is Prince Zechs due to arrive? Will there be a ball? You know I do love balls."

"You never attend them," Heero said.

"But I adore the _concept_, Heero. It's the idea that matters. How many feasts will we have?"

"Few. A welcome and a farewell, if even. We don't have enough food as it is."

"You'll sort it out, I have faith in that," Relena said, allowing the Kingdom's famine to completely slip her attention. She was incredibly good at that.

"In any case, I am exhausted, and must rest for these feasts I so look forward to but highly doubt I shall attend. You will tell me all about it, won't you, brother?" she asked, in a voice which held little of her feelings at bay.

She wanted to go to the feast, eat the food without vomiting, dance without falling, stay awake all night without collapsing, and listen to the music without it blurring into a migraine.

It wasn't going to happen, it never did. She knew it, Heero knew it, and everyone else knew it.

Heero smiled firmly at her, feeling no joy. "All about it," he said, as Svelte rose and offered her his arm.

Heero watched her go sullenly. She had had one of her sudden turns halfway through the conversation, and had gotten so good at hiding it that not even he had noticed it. She valiantly made it to the door using Svelte's hand for balance only, but the moment she thought herself out of sight she let him support her completely.

Svelte _had_ noticed. And as Heero recalled the conversation, he noticed how very easy it had been for the mage to divert all attention away from his sister.

Tsu was more useful to Relena than he thought. Not every mage would use their magic as bait simply to distract a room from their sick mistress.

Heero watched the door, his jaw clenched, wondering when exactly Svelte Tsu had transformed from being a dangerous annoyance into an equally dangerous asset.

WuFei huffed. "I'm going to have to start doing this with Luna, also," he said. "Though I don't look forward to it."

Heero shrugged. "If Luna doesn't want to tell you magic's secrets, it will not be hard for him to keep silent. And he knows you have no real power to threaten him with."

WuFei nodded. "I need to though. I can always learn something from them when I question them – little things from their reactions. And it's getting harder and harder to get that brat Tsu alone. The Princess rescues him all the time."

Heero laughed. "You have no idea what just happened, do you?" he said.

WuFei looked at him quizzically. "The Princess rescued him from me?" he said, with the tone of one who knew himself to be right.

Heero smirked. "Not as much as he rescued _her_. I'm actually starting to like the little firebug."

* * *

A whole week passed with little incident, or at least, so Heero insisted.

A monumental incident happened in Luna's perception, when he woke up one morning to Heero's sudden, gritty yell of something that sounded like "BHA! GHUARRRGH! IYHHEA!"

He later learned that Heero had very nearly bitten his tongue off as his back had went out, causing all the words he shrieked to come out garbled.

According to Heero, this was normal, and happened fairly frequently.

The Doorguard seemed to know exactly what was going on, and Irea was there fairly quickly. She fixed it with a large, loud, cracking pop that sounded far too unnatural to be healthy.

And after that, Luna was treated to the absolutely _wonderful _aftermath of Heero on a Deathweed high.

Heero explained to him that he hallucinated vividly while on the drug, and the hallucinations were actually rather unpleasant – one of the reasons he had never formed an addiction.

As a child, when this had happened, he had had life-like, gory and bloodbathed visions of his most beloved friends being stabbed in the back by wild eyed mages. These visions had tormented him until he resolved that if he had no friends, he would not care so much.

Thusly, he became distant and withdrawn.

Irea had presented the solution. As it turns out, willpower can overcome Deathweed hallucinations.

Intense mind-training had gifted Heero with the ability to nearly completely ignore gore. Furthermore, he now found it funny.

Whenever he saw Luna, he would see him with some odd mutation or injury, extra arms or wounds or both, and because he knew they weren't _real_, he just laughed an incredibly insane laugh and hugged Luna, planting sloppy kisses on his skin wherever some horrible, bloody vision was, insisting he had to 'kiss it better'.

It was unsettling and oddly romantic.

But, according to the King, it was entirely normal.

After that non-incident, Heero had been kept busy planning for Zechs Merquise's visit and trying to think of ways to prevent major mishaps when his visit and Treize Kushrenada's collided. Luna started learning letters with WuFei, but his progress was _abysmal_.

Luna couldn't seem to get the characters into his head. He had an issue remembering where the letters curved and where they were straight, and which one was which. It did not help that he was used to a mage's runes, which were a matter of closing one's eyes and relinquishing control of their hands to the magic, and involved no memorization at all. The moment he had a quill in his hand and tried to write a letter, even while just copying it, halfway through he ended up drawing a rune, simply because he found it difficult to maintain control of the quill.

No one seemed to pick up on it, and Luna couldn't tell them that was his trouble, which was probably for the best. Heero wouldn't react kindly to the mention of runes.

It had been a whole week, with lessons every day, and the only thing that had come of it was that Luna was exhausted, WuFei was frustrated, and Luna did not even know two letters completely.

Luna did not know it, but Irea had mentioned to Heero that Luna might be simple. Heero had cuffed her on the back of the head.

All in all, Luna was feeling useless and much of a failure. He was a sick, stupid street rat surrounded by fit, educated nobility. The only thing that he had done that seemed to please anyone was get on his feet and walk, despite the fact that he would preferred to remain bedridden and succeed at letters instead.

* * *

"This isn't working for me," Trowa's little blonde said, as they lay side by side, soaked in sweat in his bed.

Trowa balked. "You wait until _afterwards_ to tell me this?"

The smaller one let out an exasperated sigh and shifted. "No, that's working _perfectly_ for me."

"Then what's not working? _You're_ the one that started all this."

"One of the best things I've ever done, if I do say so myself," the mage said smugly. "What's not working is that I need something to scream out when you're in me."

Trowa considered this for a moment, the image of such an event flashing through his mind. "Yes," he agreed. "Yes, you do."

The boy sighed, and Trowa shifted uncomfortably. Neither one of them made a move to tell the other their name.

"We need aliases," Trowa's blonde mage muttered after a while.

"Doesn't it bother you that I don't want you knowing who I am?" Trowa asked.

"Not in the slightest," the blonde said. "I don't want you knowing who I am either."

Something told Trowa that his identity probably required more secrecy – he was right next to a King, after all.

He was so wrong.

"You can call me Alura," said the blonde, smiling, apparently pleased with himself. "Now, what can I scream for you?"

"Nanashi," Trowa said without hesitation. Heero used to call him that, before the two of them had shown the unsuspecting traitor, Trowa Barton, their brand of justice – identity theft and murder. "But does it matter?" Trowa asked bitterly. "Is anything going to come of this? What point is there to us doing this?"

'Alura' raised an eyebrow. "You can't be serious. You don't honestly think that after all this unsurmountable sex, I wouldn't intend to actually meet up with you some day?" He grinned and stretched out like a cat, then turned to stare at Trowa. "If it's like this in dreams, imagine what it will be like in reality."

As much as that made sense, Trowa doubted it would really happen. "You're never going to meet me. The first thing I'd do is band you and shove you into prison."

Alura made a face. "Let's compromise."

"Not going to happen."

"You can band me-"

"I know."

"-And we'll skip prison-"

"Never."

"-And I'll go straight into slavery-"

"No compromises."

"-Master."

"Done."

* * *

For anyone who may be wondering, Svelte Tsu is the blonde dude from the first two episodes of Gundam Wing. He is seen a few times, the first being when Heero shoves a sword into his face in fencing practice. As his character is never really developed beyond a serious fascination with Relena (which appears to be the norm in that school), I can kind of claim him as an OC, but he looks like the creepy blonde dude. Or at least, that's what he looks like _now_. Eheh. Haha. Yes, I have plans for this turkey.

The character is never named that I know of, so I just named him something random and stuck him in.


	26. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Notes - Apologies for the length of this chapter, but it had to be this long in order to break in the right spot.

And if I intend to give cliffhangers, which I do, because I'm evil, I have to break where I do.

Zedax – Duo is in this horrible state where his body can barely sustain the life he is trying to make it have. The more he's pushed, the more it will fail, and the first thing a body will do to conserve energy is stop transferring short term memory into long term. Thus, the little things like letters and such are forgotten minutes after being learned. I've actually been there, it's fucking frustrating. Especially in school. Whether or not Duo can overcome this major problem remains to be seen, but it's not going to be easy for anyone.

Aryam McAllyster – Creepy that you were thinking of it on the day I updated. It isn't hard for Duo to be submissive – he's not really all there if you know what I mean. It helps that he's batshit crazy. He'd have to be to be able to do the whole dual identity thing. Kai is the name of that guy? Hm. Doesn't fit this story – Japanese names would have gone out of fashion when they started talking in English. Still, I'm glad I know it now. Also, Trowa _never_ has a chance against Quatre. In any story, any situation. Quatre's a devious little tacticion crossbred with a minx. Portraying Quatre as anything but a manipulative, devious, deviant, sly little rascal is an insult to the character. Sure, he seems to be susceptible to other people's emotions – but I guarantee you given half the chance he'd use that against you in order to get his diabolical plan's success. The trick to it is finding a plan for him that's diabolical enough. Also, you're going to like the next chapter after this. Seriously. Hint hint.

CircleKV12 – I love how no one can see what I've got planned. Really, I didn't know I was this unpredictable. Let's just say that that's not quite how it's gonna go. This chapter might make people start predicting in the right direction. Let's just say that sometime soon: shit=fan.

Chapter Twenty Six – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

* * *

Luna stood on Heero's balcony, leaning heavily on the balustrade to keep the weight off his feet. He stared down at Zechs' procession with interest. Every one of his horses was white, he noted. He was too high up and too far away to tell which one of the riders was the Prince, but that didn't stop him from squinting hard and trying to see.

Heero had made a cryptic comment that morning about him attending tea with Merquise, then seemed at a loss for words as to explain it further, and just told him he would speak to him again after the feast.

The hairs on the back of Luna's neck prickled as he realized that something was out of place. He leant over the balustrade and looked down, jumping when he saw Trowa Barton lifting himself up to the balcony floor. The man then deftly lifted one leg over the railing, then the other, smirking as Luna looked at him as though he were a complete madman.

The castle had doors and stairs for a reason.

"It's a bit harder to climb than his old rooms, but still doable. Have you seen your master around?"

Luna shook his head. He hadn't seen him since that morning.

"Must be at the Dining Hall already. I wanted to have a word with him about my dream friend. You remember him?"

Luna nodded.

Trowa looked at him scrutinisingly. "Has Yuy spoken to you at all about tea this evening?"

Luna slowly shook his head.

Trowa rolled his eyes to the heavens. "Cutting it a bit short, aren't you, Yuy?" he said to the clouds, then spoke to Luna again. "Do you have _any_ idea of what is expected of you?"

Luna shook his head and looked to the floor, feeling very unsure of his position. He had no idea how a concubine was meant to behave in public – and he often wasn't sure of how one was meant to behave in private either.

Trowa sighed. "As you may or may not have noticed, the King isn't very good at speaking to people. He'll often only explain things after the fact."

Luna was reminded of when Heero's back had gone out, and he had been completely unaware that there was even a problem. It had been explained to him after the event, but it would have been a lot better had it been explained earlier. Heero had given him gifts in apology for hitting him, but had not told him what they were for, leaving Luna to wonder whether Heero was trying to bribe something from him.

In that instance, Trowa had been the go-between, interpreting Heero's actions. Again, he stepped up to that role.

Trowa lifted himself onto the balustrade and sat on it, looking at Luna. "Yuy doesn't want to put any pressure on you," he said. "He doesn't want to speak with you about this because he thinks you might take it the wrong way."

Luna shook his head slowly. He could never take anything Heero said in a bad way – he had given himself to the King, all or nothing, and there was nothing Heero could ask of him that he wouldn't give.

But Heero didn't know that.

"If Heero keeps you locked up in here much longer, there will be talk. There already is. The kitchen staff have bets running on which day Heero will finally take you out of his rooms. I have five coppers on today," Trowa said with a grin. "Tomorrow I'll be a rich man."

Trowa shifted uncomfortably. "The thing you have to understand, Luna, is that you're the favourite. Yuy could have anyone he wanted, bar none, but out of all of them he picked you. And if he likes you so much, why isn't he taking you with him everywhere? You're expected to be with him always, like his shadow, and yet you aren't. People have started coming up with their own theories as to why, and people always think the worst. The worst thing that could happen is for the people to believe that Yuy doesn't trust you to act right in public, that he's worried you'll shame him. That he can't control you. And if he can't control one person like yourself, how can he be expected to control an entire Kingdom full of them?"

Luna nodded, realisation dawning that this wasn't a matter of behaving well to keep Heero's reputation as a person high, it was a matter of keeping him respected as a King. The thought of such a responsibility rested heavily on his shoulders.

"You need to treat him like a God. Lovingly but with fear. You need to be below him at all times, affectionate and submissive, and completely ignorant of everyone else around you."

Trowa spent a minute watching Luna take it in. "Do you think you can do that for him, Luna? If you can't or don't want to, let me know now, so I can tell Heero to call it off. Can you do this for us, Luna?"

Luna nodded, completely set in his conviction to be for Heero whatever Heero wanted him to be. He would do this, and he would do it well.

Trowa spent some time with him, telling him where he would be expected to stand when Heero walked, what to do if Heero sat down, where his eyes should be fixed at all times, explaining exactly how catastrophic it would be if a single patch of skin were to be showing.

Luna listened well, and by the end of it, he was a perfect concubine, apart from the butterflies in his stomach.

* * *

Zechs Merquise was a family man, down to the very last long white gold hair. He had been incredibly close to his identical twin brother, Milliardo, despite the fact that Milliardo stood between him and the throne. He had actually liked it that way.

When Milliardo was captured by Chalc, Zechs snapped in the worst of ways. The love of peace was replaced by anger and hatred, then his brain would reason that his brother would not have wished for such, and he would return to a peaceful, pacifistic Prince. Both sides strove to rescue Milliardo no matter the cost.

So, naturally, when he caught wind of a certain rumour, a rumour of a Princess with golden hair born to two brunette parents, eight months after his own golden haired father had made a visit ... with a last name of Peacecraft in tribute to Sanq... He added the pieces together.

It was possible he had a half sister. And Zechs Merquise was a family man, down to the very last long white gold hair. Whatever it took to assure her place in his familial loop, he would do it. The Princess was unwed, and that wasn't going to last long at her age and her status. Zechs had no intention of allowing such a marriage to occur without his consent.

Zechs stared at the gates of the city of Karen. He had one obstacle – the King, Heero Yuy. A part of him longed for a weak, fumbling new King, who would roll over and expose his belly for Zechs to tread on, so as to assure Relena's immediate retrieval.

Another part of him longed for a formidable opponent, someone who would fight him tooth and nail, like his brother. He needed the adrenaline rush of a fight between brothers. He longed for it.

After all, he was a family man, down to the very last long white gold hair.

"You'll never believe what happened to me last night." Trowa said into Heero's ear when he finally found him, sitting right where he was supposed to be at the head of the table.

Zechs Merquise sat at the other end of it, eating elderberries and having an avid discussion with his second, Lucrezia Noin, about brussel sprouts.

"It better not involve your stupid sorcerer," Heero snarled.

"Still angry at them, aren't you?"

"I've always been angry at them. What did the brat do?"

"Promised to come find me and be my obedient little banded concubine."

Heero stopped completely, frozen. "_What_?"

Trowa shrugged. "I know. He's a real liar, that one. It'll never happen."

"I have no doubt it will never happen. Tell me you caught him out on it and beat the brat into the truth."

Trowa looked at him lazily and shrugged. "Nah. I was too busy christening my bed slave."

Heero snorted and swilled his wine in his glass. "So, if he does show up on my doorstep, he expects to be welcomed with open arms?"

Trowa shrugged again. "If he thinks so, he's an idiot. He should know me well enough by now to know that I'd probably shove him into the dungeons, now that we can't send his kind into Yarani anymore."

"Probably?" Heero muttered, annoyed that Trowa had used that word. "You would put him there immediately, or I would slit his throat immediately. He's in your _head_, Barton, don't make me remind you that you're not the only one that's had a mage in your head. He probably doesn't even exist and is just a fabrication made by that damn assassin."

Trowa hummed in agreement. "I've already considered this," he said truthfully, then countered it with a lie. "I'm not attached to him. He's probably either an illusion made by the assassin or he's a mage working for him. He'll betray me some day, but in the meantime I'm getting some very good dreams. I don't see how getting aggravated over it is going to change anything, it would only prove to him that his plan is working."

Heero hummed in agreement, looking at Prince Zechs and Lady Noin for a welcome change of topic. "They're an odd two," he said. "They've been talking about an array of green vegetables since they sat. You'd be amazed at what they do with cucumbers in their Kingdom. From what I've heard, it seems as though they're hardly ever _eaten_."

Trowa furrowed his brow. "You left it a bit late to talk to Luna," he said, looking at Lady Noin, who was now entertaining her lover with a story about pea and ham soup.

Heero sighed. "I'm going to leave it a bit longer. I don't think Luna's ready for it, and having his first excursion out of my rooms being a meeting with a Prince probably isn't the safest idea."

Trowa shrugged. "I went to your rooms about an hour ago, trying to find you. _I_ spoke to Luna. He's perfectly ready for it, and perfectly capable of behaving in front of Merquise."

Heero turned to face Trowa. "You spoke to him? And how did he take it?"

Trowa kneeled down so that he wasn't looming over the Prince who still sat at the table. "He took it exactly how I expected him to take it. Like a perfect concubine that just needed to be told what to do." Trowa sighed. "He's a good kid, your Highness. He's not going to do anything wrong, so long as he knows what wrong is. I told him how to act. Where he had to stand, where he had to sit when you sit. He's fine."

Heero looked scrutinisingly at his second, wondering whether or not Trowa had any idea about how a concubine was meant to behave. He realized after a moment that there wasn't really a way around it, he was just going to have to trust in his friend's judgement. And in Luna.

* * *

"Besides, that kid would do anything for you. Are you the only one that doesn't see that?"

"You're absolutely sure you want to do this?"

A nod.

"I can make excuses for you. You don't _have_ to do this."

A shrug.

"If your feet hurt, you just tap my shoulder, understand?"

A nod.

One last check of his slippers, his gloves. Luna sighed. Heero straightened his hood nervously. It was clipped into his hair so that it wouldn't move, and folded back so that his face was visible.

Once they left the rooms, the hood would cover him from the prying eyes of the castle, so long as he kept his head down, like a good slave. Zechs was allowed to see bits of him, so Heero might fold his hood back when they were in the Parlour, depending on how things were going.

Luna was sure he would make the walk, but Heero was less confident. He had said something about stairs, which Luna huffed at. It wasn't like stairs were _difficult_.

So Heero helped him stand, though Luna could do it on it his own, he just liked letting his master hold him by the hand. "A step to the left, remember," Heero said, holding his hands still and bringing them to his lips. The kiss was unpleasantly dulled through the gloves. Heero pulled his hood down. Luna lowered his head.

Heero nodded, but Luna couldn't see it, couldn't see anything more than the floor three feet in front of him. He saw Heero's feet move, as he turned away for the door, and Luna waited then followed, edging to the left.

One step behind and to the left. Trowa had explained that this was the place of a concubine. Take a step to his right, and he would be taking the place of a consort, and that would be overassuming his position.

In step with him, should they join him, would be a place for every noble of the court. His left side would be the only side most would accompany him by. His right was reserved for only the fair few. By name, Trowa and the Princess.

Luna wondered if he would see her today. If he did, he knew he would see little more than the hem of her skirts, but it would be a start. Heero spoke of her so fondly.

They reached the door. Luna could not remember ever entering through this door, so it seemed a mite strange to be exiting through it. A part of him, the part that threatened to hyperventilate, wondered desperately whether he would ever come back in that door. He had an irrational fear that leaving this room would mean leaving everything he had come to want in life, namely, Heero.

But the door was open, and he had to follow Heero the moment he moved again lest he fall out of step. Outside of the door, he saw a guard's plated boot move, and heard the chink of armour that said the rest of him had too. Heero's feet paused.

"Eyes off," he said sternly. And without giving Luna so much as a second to ponder what that meant, they were moving again.

And then they reached the dreaded stairs. It was a big staircase, but Luna knew it wasn't the biggest in the castle. From his vantage point, even with his head bowed, he could see it completely.

Two paintings adorned either side of it, but no one at all was on it. There was a red carpet folded over its steps. The red carpet signalled that this place was frequented by royalty. This stair was the main stair to and from the Royal Hall, where all the rooms for royalty were, and Heero climbed this stair at least twice daily.

Heero started down it and stopped a few steps below, turning back to him with his left hand out. Luna took it without question, but scoffed inwardly.

Who needed help with a measly stair? Certainly not one with his healing ability. He was perfectly capable of taking on a simple staircase.

It was only when he nearly collapsed down the stairs that he conceded that perhaps Heero had a point. At first he had not a clue what had happened, he just held on to his master's steady arm.

His knees were shaking something awful. He didn't understand why at first, and he wouldn't have at all if he had been anything less than a sorcerer. His knees, while perfectly capable of holding him on flat ground where they simply locked into place, were not strong enough to handle the lowering of his body down a step. They weren't even close. The moment he unlocked his knee to take the step, the muscles simply balked at the mammoth task and ran away.

He wondered how exactly Heero had seen this coming.

Elsewhere in the castle, the Lady Relena clutched her slave's arm as he helped her weak body down a flight of stairs.

* * *

Heero instructed for the Parlour to be vacated while he got Luna settled. "It's actually easier going up than it is down," Heero assured him, leading him on wobbly legs to the center of the room where four large seats lay, one considerably bigger and more exquisite than the others. Heero sat him down on this one. "You'll lie here, your head in my lap. Zechs' slave might not do the same, he might sit at his feet. Pay no heed to them. Act lazy and uninterested. Perk up if I touch you."

Luna spread himself out on the large, throne like seat, checking to make sure every inch of his skin was covered. "Zechs may see your face, if I allow it, but no more and in the presence of no one else," he reminded.

Luna nodded his understanding, lowering his head onto the seat, wondering when exactly humanity had created a lounge that seemed for all the world like a bed.

"I will meet them outside," Heero said, "then bring them in here. Trowa may join us at some point. Don't be startled if he turns up without warning, or if you look up and he's hanging from the rafters. He does that. It's become a bit of a running joke, to see how many people he can sneak up on."

Heero paused for a moment, his brow furrowed. "Forget I said that. You aren't allowed to look up."

Then he did something that made Luna very glad that there was no one else in the room. For there would surely have been an uproar if anyone had seen the King of Karen Miya kneel before his slave.

Heero placed his hand under Luna's hood, lowering his face so that he could see beneath it. "Forget I said _that_. You are allowed to do _anything_. I cannot forbid you from anything. Just … it would make me look bad. And I would be jealous."

The thought came to Luna that Heero truly had no idea how dedicated he was, and that as he had no words, he could not truly express it. He would not dream of doing something that would make his master look bad, and never would he want him jealous.

Luna belonged to him, uttlerly and completely. As Heero moved to get up, his prior words about not forbidding anything came back to Luna. Emboldened, he pushed himself up and hooked his arms around his master's neck to prevent him from leaving.

Heero fought an internal war between his royal pride and his desire to encourage affection in Luna. He was kneeling and he hated every moment of it, and he loathed the fact that Luna was preventing him from getting off his knee.

But he didn't loathe the position of their upper bodies. Not at all. Nor the expression on Luna's face, beneath his specially designed concubine's hood. Even with their equal position and Luna's raised head, he could only see his mouth, and it was shadowed, but it was curved in one of those small smiles that Luna always threw at him when he had done something right.

A gift, a compliment, a pat on the head, a cuddle on the balcony, all earned him this smile. Heero had no idea what he had done this time. Then Luna was tilting his head back and to the side, and Heero could see his eyes.

In that moment, Heero remembered Trowa's previous words. 'That kid would do anything for you.'

Luna's eyes, filled with passion and something that Heero could label only as worship, slid closed as Luna leaned in to kiss him.

It was one of the rare occasions when Luna initiated any romantic contact. Normally something so bold would see a slave slapped for trying to take control in the relationship, but Heero actually found himself craving it.

But still, Heero stopped him just as their lips touched with the hand on his cheek, under his hood. "I really don't have to worry about that, do I?" he said softly against Luna's lips.

Luna's eyes opened, still filled with that expression of absolute worship, and before he could even answer, Heero knew for certain. Luna was perfect. Luna would do everything asked, and more if he thought possible. Luna would never make him look bad, never make a mistake, never make him jealous. Luna was perfect.

Perfection smiled again as he shook his head softly, their lips grazing together as he did so.

Heero brought his other hand up to Luna's other cheek, cradling his face as he closed the extra distance and kissed Luna. Luna opened his mouth to it, allowing Heero access to the mouth he owned.

The few kisses they had shared paled in comparison. One on a balcony, after a punishment Heero could now barely believe he had needed to give. He now believed it to have been entirely redundant. Then one in a bathtub, chaste and intended to be innocent. One in bed, where Luna had been deprived of his reservations by Deathweed, and had lasted but half a second. One where Luna had not known what to do, and Heero taught him by having him mimic his actions. Several innocent pecks on a balcony.

This kiss was something entirely different and entirely welcome. Heero even forgot that he was on one knee for its duration. Luna bent his neck to get to an angle where they could press together firmly, their mouths open and crushed together. Heero's tongue entered his mouth and Luna accepted it without question, licking it softly, playfully as it did.

Heero's tongue only left Luna's mouth so that he could suck on his top lip, and then dove back in. The hands on Luna's cheeks told him that Luna was attempting to smile even as he kept his mouth open and moving against his master's.

Heero pulled back to see it, and caught a glimpse of his slave's reddened lips and brilliant open mouthed grin, but the interruption to the kiss reminded him of his knee.

Hastily he stood up, then bent to kiss Luna again, but on his feet now, where he belonged.

Luna kissed him back, seeming to have no concern at all for the changed position.

When Heero pulled back again, to see Luna looking at him with those eyes again, it was all he could do not to shove him back onto the lounge and take him right there. He was perfection incarnate with his eyes locked on his and his lips red, his breath caught in his throat.

Heero knew if he kept looking at him he wouldn't be able to stop, so he pulled him close into a hug, wrapping both arms around him, pushing his face into his shoulder where he couldn't see it. But that plan also backfired as Luna innocently acquiesced to the hug, pushing into it and nuzzling his face into his master's neck, where Heero could feel his smiling.

"I have to go find Zechs," he said, finding the first excuse he could, and thanking whatever was up there that it was actually a good one. He knew if he stayed with Luna in this way for a moment longer he would snap and have to do something – touch him, push him against the chair, kiss him again, jump on top of him on the lounge, _anything_ – and that he'd end up pushing too far. He didn't know if Luna was ready for it, and he didn't want to do it outside the bedroom, and he didn't want to deal with the repercussions of pushing it just before the meeting.

It never even occurred to him that Luna might accept, and then he'd be in the trouble of having to choose between sex with Luna or the meeting with a Prince he had scheduled.

Luna nodded into his neck and pulled away, smiling softly still. He studied the room before he curled up, looking at the plush lounge opposite his, the beautiful purple drapes over the windows.

When he curled up, he lowered his eyes and tried to look small and submissive. Heero gave a curt nod before rising and going to the double doors.

There was a period of a few minutes before he heard voices, then the doors opened again and several footfalls entered. Luna recognised the sound of Heero's feet, though he had no idea when he had committed that to memory. He was light on his feet and tended to walk without putting much weight into his step.

There was one very loud step, walking almost in sync with Heero's. Luna guessed that it was Prince Zechs'. His footfalls were the heavy thump of a man with a lot of weight in his body. He was, by the sound of it, either tall and with enough muscle to knock over a tower, or tall and fat.

"Please, sit," Heero instructed, guesturing to the lounge opposite where Luna lay.

Zechs' legs came into Luna's view as he unceremoniously fell into the chair. From the sight of them, long and well muscled, Luna knew that he was the former. This man would easily dwarf Heero, and make Luna look like a gnome. He hoped that wasn't something that Zechs would use to try to manipulate Heero, but his concern seemed unfounded. Zechs acted casually, as though he were in the company of guardsmen and not in a diplomatic meeting between royalty.

"Miyan feasts never _cease_ to amaze me. If I ate one more elderberry you could put me in the basement and let me ferment wine for you."

Luna startled a bit when he saw Heero in front of him, and moved his head out of the way a bit too quickly. He had been distracted by Zechs' voice, smooth and deep, and seemingly without any hidden meanings or diplomatic foot kissing.

Heero took his seat and guided Luna's head with his hand to rest on his thigh, as Zechs continued in a musing tone, "You seemed to enjoy the meat, Lucrezia."

There was a strange, muffled, annoyed sound, seeming to come from behind Zechs. A moment later a pair of feet joined his, smaller and in less of a relaxed sprawl.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it, Prince Zechs, Lady Noin," Heero said, and Luna heard quite obviously the change in his tone. He spoke in a controlled scolding tone, one that Luna had never heard before. All of a sudden he felt as though he were actually in a room with royalty, something he hadn't felt so prominently before. He wondered just how different Heero was with him than he was with everyone else.

"I'm glad King Yuy has the kindness to name me as I wish to be named," the woman, Lady Noin, said. "He quite obviously is far above the rudeness of some I could name."

Zechs laughed outright. "Come now, Lucrezia. Don't pretend you're not used to it by now."

Lady Noin sighed tersely. Heero's hand continued to pet Luna's head through his hood.

"Lucrezia, would you bring Lír to me? I've changed my mind. I don't want him alone while he has a cough."

Noin stood up sharply. "Make up your mind, for god's sake," she said, then turned and left.

There was complete silence until the door was shut behind her, then Heero spoke. "She isn't respectful to you," he said simply.

Zechs snorted. "We banter. It's not her respect I demand, it's her loyalty, and she'd gladly spit in the face of an offer to betray me."

Heero's tone changed. "It could be said that loyalty is the greatest form of respect," he said smoothly.

Luna could tell it was getting diplomatic. That was a blatent foot kissing using words.

Zechs ignored it. "Her disrespect isn't the reason I sent her away. I can tell you have something to say, Yuy. Your little finger is twitching."

Heero's hand left Luna's head and he stared at it. "Well there's a tell I never knew I had."

"Your father had it," Zechs said testily. "Out with it, Yuy."

Heero's words were weighed when he said them. "I received correspondence from the Kushrenada house."

Zechs sat forward immediately. "You? What does Kushrenada want with you? Did he say anything about Milli?"

"Not much. He said that his daughter is ill. They're riding here at full haste to see my Healer."

"And what are you going to do about it?" Zechs was testy. Luna realised he was tense. He had no idea who any of the people they were talking about were, but he knew they were all sore subjects.

Heero took a moment to respond. "Nothing. Kushrenada is facing exile for even leaving his estate. But to make it worse, he's taken Prince Milliardo with him. Now he's facing treason. If the Catalonia's catch them before they reach our border, Kushrenada will be executed and the Prince will probably end up in the Catalonia keep dungeons. So I'm letting them come here. The Prince will not stay with Kushrenada when he gets here, of course. The only thing I will _do_ is remove him from Kushrenada and give him proper rooms and accommodation here. He'll be free to do as he pleases. What happens next is up to third parties."

Zechs gaped. "Milliardo will be here…? Wait, third parties? What third parties? Who have you gotten involved in this?"

"So far? You. You're the third party. Once they're here, I don't care what happens to Kushrenada, so long as it doesn't involve me."

Zechs smirked. "You're good, Yuy. I like you. By the way, I have a few spare regiments under Noin. Ones home garrison can always use a few more hands, don't you think?"

Heero snorted. "That was _blatantly_ obvious, Merquise."

Zechs shrugged. "I'm not into hiding in shadows."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"How long have I got to reinforce your garrison?"

Heero chuckled. "The daughter is _dying_ and she's doing it fast. Unless your regiments can outrun the speed of a desperate father, then I guess I'll just have to do without the extra hands."

"Guess it's just me, Noin and the Honor Guard then. Of course, I don't think the armour of my Honor Guard will allow them to sneak around under your nose."

Heero grinned. "You'd be surprised, my nose can be rather accommodating when I want it to be."

Zechs let loose a colossal sigh of relief. "Thankyou, Yuy. If this doesn't turn out to be a scheme of Chalc's, I might actually get my brother back."

Heero nodded. "There is always the condition, however."

Zechs looked as though he were about to snarl. "What do you want? Make it reasonable, Yuy, or Sanq will walk all over you."

Heero chuckled. "Consideration for the daughter. According to the letters, she and the Prince are friends. For all we know she could have been all the Prince had as company in the Kushrenada estate. I'll be content to let you walk right under my nose, so long as you do not harm or impair her treatment, and you treat her as an innocent in all of this."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"You give me a goldmine of information and an opportunity to get my brother back and you ask me for _nothing_ I wouldn't do anyway?"

"That's right. All of this could just be a setup, anyway."

"Bullshit, Yuy. You want a trump card. I don't give those out."

Heero sighed. "There's no real way to say this nicely, but if you want to insist on making me, then keep pushing."

"Don't make me beat it out of you, Yuy. What do you want?"

"I want your brother on the throne," Heero said simply. Luna cringed internally. Even he knew that was a bad thing to say. "You're too unpredictable, and frankly, if you take the crown there's not a chance on this earth that Sanq would stay pacifistic. I _like_ Sanq the way it is. There's no threat to me from Sanq. I have it damn easy with Sanq like it is. If you take office, god knows what you'll do when you've taken over Chalc, which you probably will once you get the entire kingdom's manpower. And what then? Then you'll want the coast."

Zechs stared at him as though he thought he was completely mad. "You think I'd take Karen Miya? Don't be ridiculous. You know, half the population back home still thinks Karen Miya's a state of Sanq. It seceded five hundred years ago. Sanq hasn't had an issue with Karen for five hundred years. Karen Miya took our coast, our biggest trade route away five hundred years ago, and through that we never so much as squabbled. I wouldn't touch a friendship that strong."

Heero shook his head. "It's not about what you would and wouldn't do. It's about how I can read you. And in all honesty, Merquise, you're about as readable as a Yarani tome. You could be up to anything, for all I know."

Zechs scoffed. "Well that may be, but … wait, what's a Yarani tome? I've never heard of that before. Yarani's that island we send all our mages to, isn't it?"

Heero nodded. "The natives haven't developed letters yet. That's why you've never heard of their tomes."

Zechs nodded. "I see. You're doing this for you, not me. I can't really say that I blame you. If Milli's unharmed by all of this … I'd want him on the throne too. He's always been better at nobility than me."

The door opened. Noin was back. Behind her walked someone in black, and judging from what Luna could see of his clothing, he was a concubine. Zechs' concubine.

"Lír," Zechs said cheerily, as though the previous conversation had not taken place.

Lír sat down at Zechs' feet and rested his head on his master's knee. "He might cough his lungs up a bit, but he's alright. He's not contagious."

Heero looked at him, scrutinizing. He looked to be a good concubine, submissive and small, the complete opposite of Zechs' partner, Noin. Heero wondered if they got along, or if Zechs kept the two apart. He wondered how Noin, Zech's well known lover, felt about sharing him, and how Zechs coped with juggling the two.

"Still, I'd like it if you kept him away from my sister. She has a habit of catching things that can't be caught."

"Of course. How is the Princess? I didn't see her at the feast."

"She rarely attends them. Too much food makes her ill."

"Really? She hasn't outgrown the stomach plague then? Last I heard about her was when she was still, oh, twelve."

"My Healer doesn't think she ever had the stomach plague. It's something else entirely, she'll probably live with it for the rest of her life."

"Sad," Zechs said, frowning. "To live so close to the Karen Miya feasts, and not be able to enjoy them… I pity the poor girl. Aside from the illness, what's she like? Is there a marriage planned? She's of age, isn't she?"

There was a tense silense. "She's of age," Heero said. "She will not be wed. She is too frail, will bear no children and will not survive a move to a husband's estate. She would not last two months without my Healer and nor would I, so she stays here under my protection as a figurehead to the people."

Zechs raised a brow. "I had no idea it was that bad."

Heero shrugged. "She could be taken from us at any time. We have all learned to live with that. Marrying her off would not be a lifelong commitment. She could die within the first week. There would be no point."

"Except for political ties," Zechs said. "I'm sure you could find someone in high places who would marry her nevertheless."

Heero let loose an ungainly snort. "I could find several, and I could also refuse them all."

"Who's the most prominent man you've refused?" Zechs asked.

Heero raised an eyebrow at the odd question. "Most prominent status would have been the Empress of Jire, the islands just southwest off the coast."

"Empress?"

Heero shrugged. "She had five heirs already and wanted a companion, a lover. In their empire the marriage of two women is sacred. Oddly enough, the marriage of two men is forbidden."

Zechs nodded. "Weird, but fair enough. Jire is about, one tenth the size of Karen Miya?"

Heero nodded.

"And Karen Miya is one fifth the size of Sanq." There was a pause. "So, theoretically, an offer from Sanq is completely incomparable."

Heero shifted. "Depends. Jire was royalty. I would have gotten my seat in with them to the point that they became a state."

"Theoretically, say it was Sanq royalty."

"Then I would ask what in God's name you're playing at."

Zechs sat perfectly still, a strange smile on his face. "I'd take good care of her."

Heero shifted again. "You're going to push this ridiculous joke, aren't you?"

Zechs grinned. "I most certainly am."

"If, theoretically, you were to propose a marriage to my sister, then I would, theoretically, refuse it. Publically, it would be because it would be unfair to you and risk unrest between our countries when she died, and privately, I would tell you quite sincerely that I am an extremely selfish and possessive person, and you can't have her because she's _mine_. All other reasons, while they are significant, pale in comparison to the fact that she's _mine and not yours_."

Luna expected that it would have ended there, after Heero had been quite clear about it, but it was quite the contrary.

"I want to marry her," Zechs said. "This is a formal proposal. Take your time to consider it and tell me when you have reached, hopefully, a favourable answer."

Heero took a deep breath. "This isn't the reason you came here, Zechs Merquise. This is a front, an odd and roundabout way to get to something else entirely."

"Keep refusing my front and you'll get to my back, Yuy. I'm sure you won't like it."

"Well. I'll be prompt in my answer to your proposal. I will tell you, and only you, that the Princess is unavailable for marriage, due to my being unable to share. If you want to tell people about your request, I'll tell them it was because she's ill and incapable of being a proper wife. Don't ever ask me about this again, Zechs." Heero's tone was harsh and crude, like the smash of a lumberjack's axe.

Zechs sighed, and in a low and slow, but threatening tone, he drawled, "You know, this stomach issue she has sounds _a lot_ like the Peacecraft's curse, but that's just in our line. She couldn't _possibly_ have it. You know, apparently, the stomach issue my father, and his father, and his mother, and both me and Milli have, is settled with mint, but worsened extremely by hashish. I could check how she is with a tiny bit of hashish – if she gets worse, she's got the Peacecraft curse, no idea _how_ she could have gotten it-"

"That's enough!" Heero said loudly. Luna saw Lír jump a bit, then look around as though confused. He had been asleep.

"I will not tolerate your _insulting_ my mother. I know about those rumours. Yes, your father was here when my mother conceived, but no, your father had nothing to do with said conception! And you're just sick, to believe that rumour and propose in the same conversation. _This_ is why I don't want you on the throne, Zechs. I don't ever want to have this sort of conversation with you again." Luna could tell that Heero was losing his patience and what was left of his calm.

Zechs gave Heero a dry and unamused look. "Don't fight me on this, Yuy. You know I'll fight back."

"See? _This_ is exactly the kind of attack on me that I was just predicting!" Luna moved out of the way just as Heero stood up in anger. "I won't let you tarnish my good name, my sister's good name, and my mother's good name with this lie. That rumour is a _ridiculous_ rumour and nothing more than a rumour that housewives consider up to cure their boredom from their unfulfilling husbands. Are you an unfulfilled housewife, Merquise?"

Zechs smirked and looked at Lír. "I don't know. It's his job to monitor my fulfilment, not mine."

Lír made an odd look. Luna could only see part of it, and it was in shadows from his hood, and he could only see his mouth because their faces were on about the same level. He looked confused and completely unsure about what they were talking about, having missed the entire conversation.

Zechs sighed eventually. "I can see you won't be favourable in this. Your lack of cooperation is starting to make me tired." He started to stand up. Lír moved out of the way and yawned, but didn't move to stand up.

"When did you get him, by the way?" Zechs asked. Luna felt his eyes on him. "I thought you hated concubines."

"I have a general dislike of them, but there is always an exception. Luna is it."

"He's very good. Almost as good as my Lír. Which house was he trained in?"

Luna stayed impeccably still, but furrowed his brow beneath his hood. House? Trained?

"None," Heero said impatiently. "I saw him in the Yarani dungeons and decided to give him a chance. I've yet to regret it."

"Ooh," Zechs said simply, quiet for a moment. Luna could tell Heero wanted him to leave. "I've heard the untrained ones are the last to break in a Rose Order. Lucky you."

It sounded like just a statement to Luna, but Heero could never tell with Zechs Merquise. Daring to mention a Rose Order in correlation to his slave, was that a threat, an empty threat, a ploy to make him scared, or just a simple statement?

"I intend never to find that out, Merquise," he said lowly.

Zechs nodded dryly, a hand reaching out to touch Lír for the first time since he'd arrived. "Me too. Of course, my Lír wouldn't break at all, just smash his head on something hard until he wasn't of any use. He's good like that. Anyway, my stomach is full to bursting and my eyes grow heavy. Let's chat again tomorrow, good King Yuy."

Finally, he left, Lír walking behind him. Heero fell back into the seat, his hand immediately going to Luna's head. "The _nerve_! To even mention a Rose Order in front of you."

Luna gave a clueless shrug, nuzzling his nose into Heero's knee. He wasn't really bothered by anything Zechs had said, except for the fact that whatever it was had made Heero mad, and that somewhere along the line, an insult to his mother had been made. He didn't even know what a Rose Order was.

"You've been away a long time, Luna," Heero said quietly. "The Assassin's guild has gotten more depraved in the last four or five years."

Heero stayed silent a while, giving Luna enough time to wonder what the Assassin's guild had to do with anything. And they had always been depraved. He should know, he used to collect information for an assassin when he was on the street. He would sit in front of a house with views to all the bedroom windows for a week, and return to the assassin with the hours that everyone fell asleep, and whether there were any restless sleepers in the house.

"There was a time once, when assassinations were hard to do, when homes were harder to get into. Back then the Assassin's guild used to be thankful if an assassin even got in, let alone reached his target. Now it's different. Assassins are more skilled, or worse, they're mages, and the people evil enough to hire them aren't content with a simple killing. They want torture too."

The thought of Heero being tortured sent chills down Luna's spine, but that was not even slightly what Heero was talking about. "A Rose Order," he continued, "is a red rose with the name of its target cut into the stem. The assassin who accepts it takes the rose and enters the house of the target, takes his consort or concubine, and leaves the rose in his place." Heero sighed and made a disgusted noise. "The slave is methodically raped and mutilated. There's no set parameters as to what has to be done to them, but typically their eyes are burned, their tongues cut out and their ears punctured until they can't see, hear or speak. Every inch of their body is cut and tattooed. And then they are returned to their master, alive, to guarantee that they die in his arms while he tries to convey to them that cannot see or hear that he won't hurt them."

Heero's hand had tightened on his hair. "It's sick. I will allow no roses in my rooms as long as you are here. You needn't fret about it. A Rose Order is rare, and Zechs is above that. Also – the only way into my rooms to get to you is through the window, and the only way to that is to climb past Trowa's window. He takes down assassins before they even reach my balcony."

Luna didn't feel so worried about an assassin getting past Trowa. He knew that Trowa had to have skills for Heero to even be bothered with him. What worried him was if one bypassed Trowa's window completely. After all, corrupt mages favored the Assassin's Guild, and one in particular had already shown that he was sick and insane enough to carry out a Rose Order.

But that was not what Luna thought about. Luna did not fret about such a dreadful thing coming to pass, so much as he thought about how Heero would feel about him if it were.

If Luna were to be taken away on the morrow, what would Heero do, Luna wondered. He had seen his master cry for him once, when he had thought him a goner. Would he cry again? Worse, what would he think of him as a slave? Would he look back on the experience and say to himself that he'd do it all again, or would he simply pick up where he left off with one of his many other slaves?

Worse still, Luna realised, were his own regrets. If he were to be taken away and tortured, he wondered what would hurt him more; the torture, or the knowledge that he hadn't fulfilled his duty to Heero as his bed slave?

He felt torn. He was reminded of when he had first offered himself to Heero and been told to wait until he wanted it. He hadn't wanted it then, due to stress, illness and fatigue. Those factors were all gone now, or at least mostly gone. Fatigue seemed to follow him everywhere, and illness seemed to be always lurking behind corners, but he was not the same way he had been. For the first time since he had left prison, he felt human, not like an invalid, and try as he might, Luna couldn't seem to find a single reason not to offer himself again, except for a nagging feeling that Heero didn't want him anymore. He hadn't initiated anything sexual which left Luna wondering whether he had done something wrong, or whether the King had simply moved on. But even contemplating those things, he realised that the only way to find out if there was truth in them was to offer.

So Luna decided he would offer again and see where it got him. If he was rejected, then at least he would know where he stood. If he was taken ... then he'd be content in knowing that he was doing what he had set out to do when he had taken on being Luna.

And in the end, this was Heero, kind and gentle Heero. And the first time, though hazy, had been enjoyable. What was the worst that could happen? What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

A/N: Oops. I jinxed it.


	27. Turns Out Saying That Doesn't Jinx It

Force Majeur – The long and the short of it is that yes, Zechs is mental. Batshit crazy is the appropriate term.

Kitsune 1818 – I know it's too long. I don't know how to stop it. It just keeps going. I'm at the point now where if it was an original fiction, I could do some editing and get the damn thing published. But the end is actually in sight. Sort of. Nothing ever ends, as Quatre puts it.

CircleKV12 – You're right on at least four points, but I won't say which. There are three others you've brought up which are _possible_ scenarios (all of them with twists) but I won't tell you which :P Go on and tell me your theories once you learn about Aleri and Ennoura.

Sseattle – WuFei is like, mid-forties. I haven't really decided how old. Just remember that there's no healthcare in these days, and no contraception, so he's old enough now to be a grandfather. He's very very fit though, so he's one of those rare good looking middle aged guys.

AnniCat – Thanks for your epic rant on Duo. I really miss him too. I have grown rather fond of Luna, but half the battle at this point is _how_ to get Duo back. I'm considering many different options on how to bring him back.

If anyone has any fantastical ideas on how they want to see Duo return, I'm interested to know what they are. I haven't decided how yet - or even _if _– so I'd like to see if anyone's got any ideas that match mine.

MoonChild

Chapter Twenty Seven – Turns Out Saying That Doesn't Actually Jinx It

* * *

_Love of mine_

_Someday you will die_

_But I'll be close behind_

_I'll follow you into the dark_

_No blinding light_

_Or tunnels to gates of white_

_Just our hands clasped so tight_

_Waiting for the hint of a spark_

_If heaven and hell decide_

_That they both are satisfied_

_Illuminate the 'No's on their vacancy signs_

_If there's no one beside you_

_When your soul embarks_

_Then I will follow you into the dark_

I Will Follow You Into The Dark, Death Cab for Cutie

* * *

Aleri came back from chopping firewood. He had to use magic to do it, of course, his body was simply unable to do anything these days.

His four-hundred year old bones were riddled with arthritis and fractures. It was only his magic that made them move. He was walking now by levitation only, as the weak elderly muscles he had left were far too sick and weary to carry him. His stomach had aged, so food was an almost pointless endeavour, as he only digested the nutrients from a fraction of what he ate. His body was no longer producing much heat, so he had to keep a constant layer of magical warmth around him so as not to freeze to death. His heart had begun to give way years ago.

The interesting thing was that he could repair all of this damage in only a second. It would take longer for his ageing brain to decide to heal it than it would for his magic to heal it. But he was tired. Very tired. He and his mate and magic-sibling, Ennoura, had decided to do this long ago, and he would not look back on their decision.

The last sixty years had been the most peaceful and pleasant of his entire four hundred years. Letting himself slowly decay with his love was not something he would ever regret.

She was still asleep when he returned to their tiny little cabin. No one knew where they were. No one would come knocking until after they had both breathed their last. Aleri tended to the fire. He liked to keep it warm for Ennoura. Her brain had decayed a fair bit in the ageing, and she often simply forgot to keep the layer of warmth around her equally decaying body.

It was very early morning. Aleri had only risen because of the fire, and because he knew that when Ennoura woke up, she would not let him leave to tend it, so he had to do it before she woke.

It amused him how his lesser counterpart held so much sway over him. He and she both knew that he was far more powerful than her. But that never seemed to bother her, she would still contest him at every possible chance.

It was part of the reason he adored her so. Part of the reason that he wanted nothing more than to die with her.

He crept back into bed, letting his levitation spell ease himself onto the soft fur mattress. Ennoura didn't wake up. He was good at getting back in without waking her up, he had been doing it for centuries.

Aleri sighed deeply and managed to move himself closer to her, to hold her in his arms. He was glad of the pain wards, else he simply wouldn't have been able to move that way.

Their bodies had endured a lot longer than any normal mortals would have since they halted their sublime healing. It had been rather difficult to do, as the magic tried to heal the body on its own, but once they had mastered it, it had not been difficult to continue.

And so, their young and supple bodies had begun to age. Once they were certain they could restrain themselves from healing, they had bid farewell and left the world of magic in the care of the Elders. The Elders had been sad to see them go, but they could not stop them.

Ennoura had not aged well. She was riddled with wrinkles and loose skin, her hair was mostly fallen out, and her teeth were all gone. She could have regrown them if she had really wanted to, but she was not bothered by it. She spent most of her time asleep these days, dreaming endless repetitive dreams. Her memory wasn't good at all, so she could dream the same thing over and over and it would always seem new.

He slipped into her dreams easily with their soulmate connection. It was the one where they were young again, and the unicorn came to see her. She had refused to bed him until she saw a unicorn, because the legends said they only came to virgins. He had waited no less than fifty years for that unicorn, and he had damn near strangled it when it finally arrived. The damn thing was late.

Mages often wondered where unicorns came from. Most summoned creatures would rise from the earth, materialise from the dust in the air, or rise from the depths of the sea, but unicorns did not. They would trot up from behind a tree, or crest over a hill beside you, or you would suddenly realise that you had been staring at it the entire time you were summoning it. Unicorns seemed as though they had been there the whole time, and that your summoning it was simply a courtesy. Nevertheless, they were the most difficult being to summon, and the day Ennoura found hers was the happiest of her life.

She was holding the unicorn, petting it softly while it lay with his head in her lap. Aleri walked to her, and sat beside her, exactly as he had the day it had happened.

She breathed a long, peaceful sigh, and her mind frayed a bit. Aleri found it difficult to hold onto the dream, as though she and the dream were drifting away. He was pulled back to the real world, where he heard Ennoura's old body breathing a rasping sigh. He delved back into her dream.

The unicorn rose to his slender, graceful legs, whickered softly, then turned to leave.

Normally, when a unicorn leaves, he leaves the same way he entered. He ducks behind the tree or crests the hill again, or you suddenly realise that you've fallen asleep staring at him, and you've woken staring at a weirdly shaped rock. Normally, when a unicorn moves, all surrounding it cannot tear their eyes away from its grace, and its brilliance would stun them in place. But Ennoura had had this dream many, many times before, and she was no longer stunned. She rose with the unicorn and followed behind him as he walked slowly into the thick of the forest.

Aleri would have been content to have been stunned in place by the unicorn, it is an experience one can never have too many times, but where Ennoura went, he would follow.

Her mind was fragile and the dream was hard for him to hang on to, but he continued on. Ennoura followed the unicorn until they were just out of sight of where they had been, and then they saw where the unicorn had come from. It was not of the earth or the sea or sky, but of something else entirely, something warm and dark and pure. The forest in front of them was gone, replaced with pure, pitch blackness, which the unicorn stepped into without fear, and was engulfed in in moments.

Heaven and Hell had declined their souls, and those would be reborn when they died, but not their consciousness. These two minds, so entwined with one another, so in love, were going to die, and their memories with them. The only question was: where would they go?

Ennoura had already followed the unicorn into the dark. She turned back to him, her beautiful violet eyes staring at him, and suddenly Aleri realised that he wasn't beside her as she stepped into darkness.

In moments, she was gone. Without hesitation, the SunChild followed his MoonChild into the dark.

Entwined as they were, their bodies together, their last breaths mixing together as they exhaled, it was really no surprise to the Elders that found them, that they had made not two weapons, but one.

* * *

As soon as they entered their room, Luna closed the door and rested his weight on it, bracing his hands on the hard oak by his hips. Heero hadn't noticed him stop and was discarding his shirt, readying for bed. Luna stayed where he was, heart pounding, body shuddering with nerves, but he managed to keep fom breathing so loudly as to alert the King.

He watched as Heero unceremoniously tossed his shirt onto the top of the trunk at the foot of their bed, and he stared at Heero's back. His big scar blared for attention, distracting Luna from the slightly dark skin of his master and the muscles underneath. Luna had to remind himself that those muscles had never intentionally harmed him as Luna. He had been punished once as Duo, but the one time Heero had hurt him as Luna the man hadn't been in control of himself. Luna knew that Heero wouldn't hurt him, and considering the evidence from the past saying differently, all that meant was that Luna loved him enough to be blinded by it. This realisation didn't bother him in the slightest.

Heero buried a hand in his hair and scratched his scalp, turning to Luna, brows knitted together. "Coming to bed?" he asked, clueless as to why his slave stood at the door just watching him.

Luna looked to the floor sheepishly, fidgeting. He raised his head to look back up at Heero, gave a slight grin and nodded, then slowly stepped forward. The weight he had been resting on the door returned to Luna's feet, making them hurt as he approached his master, but it was a small price to pay.

As he approached, taking baby steps, he took out the clips in his hair which kept his hood firmly in place. He unclasped his hooded cape and let it fall to the floor in a semicircle pool behind his feet. His fingers fumbled with the buttons of his tunic and the belt, and when it was open he let it too fall to the floor. He pulled on the ties of his undershirt, and when they were undone the shirt fell about his shoulders loose. He reached Heero, who had simply been staring at him, and took his limp hands in his own. He guided them to his neck, shifted his own hands so they lay atop Heero's, then slowly guided them down from his neck to his shoulder and along it, where Heero's hands collided with his loose undershirt. Heero's hands, sliding along his slave's shoulder to his arm, pushed the shirt from his shoulders and to his arms, where it took little coaxing to drop to the floor in a puddle around Luna's feet.

Luna dropped his hands, placed them on Heero's chest and stepped forward. He was sure at first that in this proximity that Heero could hear his heart beat, but after feeling Heero's through his hand on his chest, he suddenly doubted that Heero could hear anything but his own blood thundering in his ears.

_So he is still interested in me after all._

He had no idea exactly how right he was. Heero, having just had to resist doing _exactly_ what Luna was offering not an hour ago, was now faced with the perplexing opportunity to do what he wanted. And Luna was looking at him again with _those_ eyes. Worshipping, wonderful, beautiful eyes, clouded a little with nerves, but only a little.

Heero's hands gripped Luna's shoulders and his thumbs lightly ran along his collarbone. Luna saw that Heero's lips were bright red from biting, and forcefully removed his own lip from his teeth.

Heero's hands moved straight down, his fingertips running over Luna's nipples and he sucked in a breath, surprised but certainly not in a bad way. Luna smiled. It was going to happen. Heero was going to claim him again tonight. He would finally _belong_ to his master again.

He just couldn't keep doing this half-heartedly. He wanted to be in this all or nothing, preferably all, and he couldn't be all in if his master didn't actually own him, entirely, willingly. But that was going to change tonight.

Heero's hands moved to his neck and up, settling with his fingertips touching the back of his head, then moved in and kissed him. Luna smiled and kissed back, looping his arms around his master's neck, mirroring the position they had kissed in earlier.

Heero was very grateful that he was being given another chance at it without having to kneel. He pressed his lips to Luna's, asking for his mouth, and Luna gave it to him without question.

Luna was a fair amount shorter than his master, and after a few moments, he stood up on his toes to get closer. Heero's eyes fluttered in surprise, and he moaned in the back of his throat. He liked Luna like this. Offering. Bold. Kissing him. Shirtless. When had he started prioritising these things above Luna's inability to speak? He didn't know. He didn't want to know.

There had never been a time where he hadn't wanted Luna. Even before he had known of his existence, he had wanted someone to share silence with him. It was one of the reasons he liked Trowa. But somewhere along the line, it had changed. Now he wanted Luna for Luna, not for his muteness. Every little step Luna took to please him was like some sort of euphoria catalyst, and all he wanted was for Luna to keep taking those steps. Luna being mute wasn't one. It simply prevented Luna from annoying him with too many words. It inspired no euphoria, no love, nothing. It was just the absence of a bad thing.

Now that he actually knew Luna, he wondered exactly how annoying his voice could ever have been. Even if he talked constantly, all day, Heero was unsure if it would bother him. Furthermore, he was fairly certain now that if he told Luna to shut up he actually would.

When they parted, it was solely from Heero's inability to keep from being distracted by Luna's hair. His fingers were in it, but it was bound still, and he resolved to fix that. His fingers trailed reluctantly away from Luna's skin, and he led him to the bed. Luna sat down at the edge, hands fidgeting with the sheets, one side of his bottom lip sucked in as he did when he was nervous. He stared up at Heero with his head down, looking for all the world like the most perfect being Heero could never have dreamed up in his wildest fantasy.

Heero sat behind him and ran his hands lightly over Luna's hair, before starting to unravel it from its plait. His hands worked slowly and lightly, and he wondered how slow they were going to take this, then cursed himself for wondering.

It was a testament to how slow it was happening, that Heero found himself feeling rather mournful. He wanted this, more than anything he could think of, but he wished that while it happened, he would have a _real_ name to moan.

For now, he settled with wrapping his arms around Luna, burying his nose in his hair, and whispering in his ear, "Mine."

Luna turned his head as far as he could without pulling on the hair that was trapped between his back and Heero's chest, smiled, and nodded.

And that was all that need be said. Luna had no words and needed none from Heero, and when he had first taken in a mute slave, Heero had thought it worked the same way for him also. He was beginning to wonder whether or not he had been wrong, because he had the sudden urge to hear it from Luna.

It was at that point that Heero realised that he no longer wanted Luna to be mute. It stopped the annoyance of unnecessary sound, but he knew that it was not, nor could it ever be a worthy trade-off for words of devotion or the moans Heero knew he was about to cause.

The mere thought of what Luna's moaning might sound like gave him far too much bittersweet pleasure than he could take.

Luna mouthed the word, "Yours," and Heero could hear the 's' sound faintly, from the whistling of air as Luna exhaled. It was as though that were the cue to start, that Luna had given him the go ahead, that it was permitted.

Heero pulled away, his hands on Luna's arms, and guided him back, turning him around and letting him rest onto the bed on his back. Luna moved only to pull his hair out from underneath him and pull it over his shoulder. It was wavy from the braid, not straight as Heero had once been used to seeing it.

Heero slowly moved over Luna, bringing their bodies together, but never once resting any weight on him, rather keeping himself up on his elbows. He moved one leg between Luna's, nudging them aside, and Luna obliged, exactly as he had done with his mouth for their kisses. Once settled, Heero began to assault the side of Luna's neck that was bare of hair, kissing languidly and slowly, slowly pressed them closer together.

Luna didn't really know what to do with his limbs. He unsteadily put an arm around Heero, half to hold on and half because he didn't know what else to do with it. He was starting to like the kisses to his neck, in between when it tickled. His other hand started toward Heero's head, to rest in his hair, show him that he didn't dislike what he was doing, but he second guessed the action halfway. Was a hand in his master's hair too bold for a slave? Were the two of them beyond that? He didn't know.

There was a part of him, buried deep, that he called Duo, that wanted to ask Heero. A part of him wanted to figure out where they stood and what they were, and it was so fierce in its want that Luna feared it. If he managed, somehow, to convey that question to the King, then what would that part of him do if it didn't receive the answer it wanted? It was safer never to ask.

It was far safer not to prompt an answer to the question with the hand still left in midair, far safer. Until Heero's mouth reached his chest and the entire thing was taken out of his control.

Half startled and half tickled, his rand reached for the source of the sensation all of its own volition, and took a hold in Heero's hair. Heero didn't push it away, didn't react at all really, just glanced up at him, smiled lightly, then kissed his nipple.

After having nothing but soft sheets and silk clothes, his skin had become sensitive to a feather's touch, and ticklish. Ticklish beyond all imagination. It was the oddest sensation, to have Heero's mouth on an extremely sensitive place, all heat and saliva, then his lips or tongue brush lightly over it, and for that to tickle.

The scene was too serious and too intense for him to laugh, it just caused him to writhe a bit and breathe faster. His mind could not figure out whether it liked it or hated it, he'd never really liked being tickled. But the longer he tried to figure out whether it was good or bad, the more he realised that his body already knew how it felt. And surprisingly enough, he felt it not in his nipple, but in his gut. It was a soft but insistent tug, making him want to curl up on himself and writhe, or the opposite and arch his back and curl his toes.

He could feel himself hardening, and it was an odd sensation. It didn't happen often. He'd been imprisoned for a long time, and his childhood before that had been on the streets and in a church. First he was taught to fear sex, then taught total abstinence. Though it was not unwelcome at the time, being aroused was a fairly new thing.

Heero's mouth left him and he was truly glad he couldn't make a sound, because he felt in the back of his throat what would have been the most pitiful keening noise. It was hard to stop himself from pushing his master's head back down, but then their lips met. Heero shifted, pushing one of the elbows he was resting on closer so that his hand could cup Luna's cheek, but it didn't get there. The shift had moved himself against Luna's steadily growing arousal, and caused the beautiful boy to moan, ceasing their lips connection as he let his head fall back.

Heero stared at him, entranced, and when Luna regained his senses, he moved again, deliberately this time, and pushed on the leg between Luna's, making his legs move a little further apart.

The slave didn't know what had hit him, but he couldn't focus and couldn't move. It was like Heero's kisses, only without the tickling and with more pressure, and at least ten times the intensity. Vaguely, he knew he was moaning, and in between that, panting, but that was really about all he knew.

Heero found himself watching Luna's throat intently, as though if he stared hard and long enough, he could burn a hole big enough for him to reach inside and claim Luna's heart and everything else inside of him. The movement as he breathed and moaned captivated him, but all too soon Luna had come to his senses and forced his silent moans to a halt.

Luna had enough time to see Heero staring in an odd way at his throat, then see him glance to him, and then he was gone again in that sensation as Heero moved.

Heero knew he was being utterly wicked, but he pushed their clothed groins together anyway, and watched again as that throat did all those things again. He bent his head and kissed it, and he felt Luna moan underneath his lips.

It seemed as though he could actually hear it, if he stayed that way. His hand found its way to Luna's neck, his fingers on his throat, feeling every moan, every groan, every pitiful keening wail.

He could almost hear it. Almost. He stilled his hips and kissed Luna's lips, surprised when the moans continued with every time he pushed his tongue past Luna's lips.

He wrenched himself away, hooking his thumbs into his pants and yanking them down, pulling and kicking them from his feet. He started on Luna's, far more careful with them, actually undoing buttons. Luna helped him, lifting himself up and pushing them down, and Heero slowly slid them from his feet, careful of his sore and delicate ankles. Luna hated the extra time his master took around his feet – the shackles on them had stopped them from growing the way they should have, and now they were tiny, delicate things, hardly grown since he was eight. He thought they looked girly.

Luna had all of a split second to be embarrassed about the rest of himself, completely nude with his legs spread. He had, for some reason, expected Heero to take a good long look at him, but it seemed that Heero only looked at him in order to gauge where to put his hands.

One hand went under his knee and lifted it, the other straight to his arousal, which made him scream. He went blind for a moment, unable to see, or rather he could see but his mind and eyes couldn't manage to convey to each other what was what. When his mind crashed back into his body, he realized he was breathing too hard and fast, there were tears in his eyes and Heero was above him, kissing his forehead, then looking him in the eyes knowingly. And through it all, his entire body burned. The sensation in his gut and in his arousal built, and he became aware that he was _far_ more sensitive down there than he had ever been before.

Heero kissed his lips, and he distractedly kissed back, hearing his master's hand searching the bedside cabinet. He had a pretty good idea what for. The idea both scared him and excited him.

He barely remembered the first time, only that he'd been weak and unable to move, and that it had felt like Heaven. He remembered the feel of Heero inside of him, the vulnerability of being that way with him there, and the feeling of safety at the same time. Most of all he remembered the smell of Heero's hair, comforting, familiar.

He was nervous but not nearly nervous enough to hesitate. There was no reason Luna could conjure not to go ahead with this. He moved his legs further apart, as wide as he could without hurting himself, and Heero hooked a hand under his knee and lifted it until his foot rested near his thigh.

He watched as Heero dipped his fingers into the jar, noted how much of it he coated his fingers with, and watched him move his hand down. His other hand he felt at his neck, just like before. Heero moved so their foreheads touched, and he was about to say something, but Luna nodded first. Heero closed his mouth and smiled at Luna, a smile he would give anything to see over and over again, and then he kissed him.

The oil was cold and slick, he felt it where Heero's fingers touched him. He didn't push in, just stroked around in small circles. When he entered it was slowly, with only a fingertip, which did the same thing in him, just pushing around and in with all the speed of a snail.

Luna's mind and body quite instantly agreed that they did not like this one. The arousal that had faded slightly with nerves began to wilt with his discomfort. There was no pain, but there certainly wasn't any of the pleasure he had felt the last time.

He shifted his legs a little further apart, thankful that Heero stilled as he did, because the movement caused his insides to tense. He put an arm around his lover, holding him a little bit closer. Heero kissed him again.

His bottom lip was thoroughly sucked on as Heero pushed in further. He was grateful for the distraction. It seemed the deeper it went, the weirder it felt. He was starting to worry. What if it wasn't like the time before? What if it stayed this way, feeling weird and uncomfortable, and he didn't enjoy it even slightly? What if it was like this every time hereafter? He feared that like the plague. He wanted to like this. He felt himself starting to tense up and knew that was not good. He forced himself to relax, but it was hard with Heero's finger moving around inside of him.

It seemed the moment he'd relaxed enough, Heero started pushing another finger inside of him and he had to start all over again.

Heero finally spoke. "Luna," he whispered softly. Luna lowered his eyes, ashamed that he couldn't seem to get it right, and knowing that his master was going to tell him he had to relax. "I want you to hold onto me." Not what he had been expecting. "And look me in the eye. Don't look away. I want to see this."

Luna obediently wrapped his arms tightly around Heero and locked their gazes. It was hard to hide his discomfort from him when his fingers started moving again, twisting this time then pushing in further. While Luna still had the concentration to think, he thought it odd, as though his master were aiming for something inside him to touch. What little he knew about sex absolutely did not prepare him for the idea that there _was_ something in there to aim for, let alone the feeling.

That was when his arousal started to come back. His entire body tensed up and froze, including his vocal chords and his lungs. He couldn't control it, it was all he could do to keep his eyes locked on Heero's, who watched him intently.

After a moment, the shock lacing the sensation wore off, and he moaned for all he was worth. He vaguely registered Heero grinning like an idiot before his head fell back and he tossed it from side to side, groaning.

When the feeling lessened, it was only because Heero had pulled out far enough to push in another finger, which quite promptly joined the others and made Luna moan all over again.

Heero felt all of it through the hand at Luna's throat, and each one went straight to his need. Luna panted underneath him, still tense but prepared enough. Heero removed his fingers and Luna's breath hitched. He gave the most uncomfortable expression and writhed a bit as Heero covered himself in oil. He also was not prepared for the idea that his fingers _leaving_ could leave him uncomfortable and empty, but he controlled himself long enough to relax when Heero was positioned at his entrance.

He shifted one of his legs further and tightened his grip around Heero's shoulders. He closed his eyes when he felt Heero, thick and blunt and nothing at all like those fingers, pressing against him. He felt his body cave and allow him in, felt him slide in, forced in parts but always slow and steady, never an unexpected movement. He fit inside of him like a hand in a glove, perhaps maybe a hand a tiny bit too big for the glove, snug and tight.

All the discomfort at the beginning and all the nervousness in the world suddenly meant nothing to him as Heero let out a colossal groan, the most satisfied and primal noise Luna had ever heard. It felt good to hear it, to know that it was in his body that it was made. He knew in that one sound that he'd do it a thousand times over, even without the pleasure, if only to know that Heero felt good enough to make that sound.

Heero panted heavily as he pulled away, then pushed back, hitting him _there_ again. He managed to keep from tensing so much, but couldn't help but moan again.

It may not have travelled from his mouth to Heero's ears, but it did travel from Luna's throat through Heero's hand and straight to his groin. He moved out a little bit faster, and pushed in a little bit faster again, hitting Luna in the same spot, to make him moan again.

Every silent moan made Heero move faster, more desperately, and strike deeper into Luna, hitting him inside harder. Luna's moans turned to desperate screams, and they built up together like that until Luna couldn't keep still anymore. He slammed his feet into the mattress, pushing himself up to meet Heero's thrusts. He didn't even feel the pain in his feet as he did. It was minor, it was beyond tiny in comparison to the other feelings his body presented him with.

He pushed himself up again to meet Heero, who slammed him back down into the bed. He had long since lost control of his hands. One was buried in Heero's hair, the other scrabbling for purchase on his smooth back. Heero had a vague, lust filled fantasy of seeing scratches on his back in the morning. The idea actually excited him further.

Heero had had sex before. He was royalty, after all. He still had a harem full of slaves. He hadn't visited it since meeting Luna, but that didn't change the fact that he was experienced. He had had sex with many, many boys, had been privy to all sorts of kinks and depravities. There had even been partners who had loved him, but he had never loved back.

In all his time, Heero had never made love. He'd been made love to. He had never reciprocated outside of the physical. And sure, it was always much more pleasurable with someone that loved him, especially if there was some sort of kink involved. He had been told and had actually believed that having sex with someone one loved was better than any other, but he had not expected exactly how much better. Every moment inside of Luna could not be compared to a thousand thrusts inside someone else. It was not the arousal, not that he couldn't control himself, it was something entirely different.

It was if the emotion attached could actually multiply the sensation.

At the next thrust, Heero's arm snaked around Luna's lifted waist, his hand, still wet with the oil, grabbing at his side. He pushed back in, grunting, and didn't let Luna fall to the bed. He continued this way, their bodies close enough that Luna's arousal pressed against Heero's stomach with every thrust, and after two more, Luna screamed as though there were no tomorrow and released himself, tears fighting from his eyes, breathing laboured and too fast, but above all, he wore the most satisfied smile he had ever worn.

It was all Heero had been waiting for and he was done, filling Luna with all he had as the arm around him tightened and held him close, and the hand at his throat felt every last sound of Luna's orgasm, from the first scream of completion to the last tiny, sated moan.

They fell back to the bed, Luna completely out cold, the day having caught up with him. Heero kissed his lips and fell to the side, pulling Luna to him.

He compared it in his mind to all the other times. It even made his first seem like a pittance, and that actually had been special. His first had been the only time his father had done something truly kind for him.

On his fourteenth birthday, his father had bought him two slaves, and without further ado, had told Heero that they were going to have their wicked way with him. He had chuckled, patted his son on the head, and walked away.

They were a boy and a girl, both gorgeous in their own rights. Heero could barely remember the girl – they were never interesting to him in that way, although he had always liked women's hair.

The boy had been small, slender, and very lovely. They had taken him to his room, undressed him using naught but their teeth, and simply asked him what he would like to experience, and then given it. It turned out the boy had expected to be turfed aside – men normally preferred women – but he was pleasantly surprised to be the center of Heero's attention.

For some reason, the girl actually seemed to enjoy that. Not in a 'Thank God it isn't me way' but in an 'I like to watch' way.

She somehow knew exactly what two homosexual men ought to be doing in the bedroom. She had held down the boy while telling Heero exactly what to do to make him completely lose it, thrash, scream, moan.

They didn't leave his bedroom for two days.

He still had her. The boy, he would still have also, but he had been taken by fever not three days after their coupling.

Two days with two very attractive, willing and experienced slaves did not compare to Luna. Though it had probably helped in pleasuring him.

Shortly after the entire world learned that he preffered boys, he had been offered one most intriguing by a House in Sanq. Sand. He was a trained whore, essentially, but of a somewhat more delicate persuasion. The slave enjoyed being tied up. The more chains the better, the longer the confinement the better.

He had fallen in love with Heero very quickly. It took Heero a while to get used to the bondage, but he certainly didn't mind it. He mostly only enjoyed it because Sand simply couldn't contain himself when he was tied up. Sand fell in love with Heero primarily because the masters that typically liked chains were also the ones that liked giving pain, and Heero had always insisted that pain was a punishment only. Being a trained slave, Sand would never make such a mistake to require punishing, so Heero was the first man ever to fulfil his need to be restrained and not tarnish it with pain.

Sand was still in his harem. Heero didn't know if Sand still loved him – he had not seen him for a few months now, but he would not be surprised if he did. The boy was like Luna – all dedication, pure emotions and smiles.

As like as they were, and as good as the sex was, even with its kinks, it didn't compare to Luna.

Heero had had only one out of the harem relationship, when he was nineteen, and it had been shortlived and bitter. He had been spoiled by the slaves, and had been unable to consider a relationship where his partner did not give their all and refuse him nothing. He understood waiting to see if the relationship would last, that was a matter of honor, one couldn't simply waltz in and expect to immediately bed a free man. What he did not understand had been the idea that something he wanted would be refused.

He didn't always get the position he wanted, or the kiss was broken before he wanted it to, or the sex was simply refused on occasion. Soreness, while a perfectly valid excuse, was not one any slave had ever given him.

The sex, while it had been passionate and good, had been a constant war between Heero wanting complete control and not wanting to ruin the relationship.

In the end, it wasn't his need for control that ruined it, but the constant war. It boiled over into non-sexual things until eventually they no longer enjoyed being around one another at all.

It didn't compare.

Nothing compared to what had just happened. Nothing ever could. Even sex with Sand, his usual favourite, paled in comparison to just lying there with Luna after what they had done. Perhaps the fact that he was sated had to do with that, but that didn't explain why he hadn't called on Sand in so long while he hadn't been having sex with Luna.

The only thing that could truly explain it was love. But even as Heero admitted it in his mind – though not at all grudgingly – he knew that saying it was a different matter entirely.


	28. Oh, Wait, Yes It Does

AnniCat - Quatre, if you recall, in both serious and this fanfiction has a history of going batshit crazy on everyone and killing innocent people. Capital city + most powerful being in the universe + batshit crazy + Luna's crazy making it impossible for Quatre to know exactly where he is = guaranteed decimation. If Quatre had his hands on a mage who could read minds, then he'd be able to figure out where Duo/Luna was, but he doesnt have one (explained why soon). On top of this, Duo/Luna are BOTH insane, and any kind of sudden movement is likely to blow Duo/Luna off the hook, and then there would be fighting, and then Quatre would also go batshit crazy. Again. He's a time bomb with half the LCDs on the timer fucked up. No idea when he's going to go off.

As for the other characters ... well. There are plans within plans, you see. Muahahahaha.

Aryam McAllyster - Quatre can summon, but if you'll read the above, I think we'll all agree that he shouldn't. Good God, I shudder at the thought. It was bad enough when he had Wing Zero at his hands. Give that guy a few dragons and he'd fuck shit up.

Duo without the ability to talk can only end in him funnelling all his usual talkativeness into diabolical plotting (something I'm seriously considering, and if I don't do it in this, I will have to write another fic where he gets laryngitis).

Everyone else - thanks for all the contributions on Duo's return. Some of you are fairly close to what I'm planning, some are way off, not going to tell which :P

And about here is where shit begins to hit fan. And splatter absolutely everywhere. And get on everyone.

MoonChild

Chapter Twenty Eight – Oh, Wait, Yes It Does

* * *

Luna woke up to two things: pain and confusion. He was confused because what little he knew about sex dictated that he should have a sore backside and he did not. The pain was all in his feet. He remembered the previous night rather vividly and he was glad for the memory, but couldn't help chastising himself for using his feet to push himself up. Throes of passion had apparently made him stupid.

Slowly, he pushed himself to a sitting position, resting his weight gingerly on his backside, but even the pressure didn't make him sore there. Heero had woken with his movement, and stared groggily at him. "Sore?" he asked dubiously, rather certain that he hadn't been rough enough to warrant pain in the morning after.

Luna shook his head in a weird sort of wonder, then stopped midway through and nodded, pointing to his feet, still under the blankets.

"You did walk a fair bit," Heero mumbled, rolling closer and unceremoniously slinging his arm over Luna's legs, resting his forehead against his thigh. He seemed rather nonchalant about the previous night, just sleepy and content.

Luna wanted to be the same, but for some reason, he couldn't. He knew that it was too early in the morning to be awake, but also that the pain in his feet was not enough to have woken him from what had been a pleasant and deep sleep. He couldn't place what had woken him though, just that there was something wrong, that somewhere deep in his subconscious, he knew that something was about to happen, or something had happened, or that he should be doing something to prevent something…

Deep in the back of his mind, Duo Maxwell screeched warnings to his counterpart, but they were not heard. Duo Maxwell had let Luna take over, let himself be pushed so far away from consciousness that he could not even come close enough to the surface to warn Luna of what was coming.

The bonds between brothers were strong, and although Quatre was more susceptible to empathic communications, Duo could feel them too, when they were strong, and from someone very close to him.

Quatre was doing something. Duo didn't know what, he wasn't even really coherent, all that his meagre presence knew was that Quatre had enough adrenaline feeding his emotions that something big was happening, and that if it was big enough to make Quatre feel this way, it could mean a large amount of magic was about to take place, and that could affect Luna through the leech.

He couldn't tell Luna this though. And though Luna and Duo were one and the same, Luna did not have the emotional ties to Quatre that Duo did. So, when it happened, it happened without warning.

His heart abruptly thumped hard, pushing blood through his body with speed that simply should never be had. In a split second, all the blood that had been circulating to his muscles immediately vacated them, pushing through his veins, all the way up his body and into his neck.

His brain had no idea what was happening. It feared he was dying, and sent messages to his muscles to check to see whether they were still there. His entire body spasmed, then as the blood left his muscles completely, he fell lax, his head falling straight into the headboard.

All this happened in but a moment, before Heero had time to wake up and prevent him from falling. Heero managed to lay him back down flat, but Luna then presented with another problem.

He couldn't breathe.

His blood was rapidly being pulled to the leech, abandoning all other places. His face had turned white, his every vein standing out. His Yarani bands pierced and bled, but not from blood rushing to his hands with magic, but from blood rushing in the opposite direction, to his neck to give the leech magic. And feed it did. It took all the magic it could from Luna's blood, then discarded the blood like a man discards a chicken bone once all the meat is gone from it. With all this magic, the leech swelled and grew, and what had already been pressing on his jugular and vocal chords now grew so large that it began to crush his windpipe.

Whatever Quatre was doing, it was sapping all his strength, enough to force the leech to feed him extra magic. The leech had been created to take enough power from Luna to feed Quatre and keep him alive, but never enough to actually kill Luna. The leech would stop feeding Quatre only if Luna would not survive any more.

As the blood was filtered of all of its magic, it returned to Luna's muscles. His brain still didn't understand what was happening to it, which was a common occurrence when magic was in play. The moment circulation returned to a muscle, it jerked and spasmed in a fit, until finally, the leech became so large that Luna's air supply was completely shut off. He passed out subsequently, soon to wake up. The leech would not kill him under any circumstance. It would make him weak enough that other things could kill him, but it would never be the direct source of his death.

Quatre would never kill him.

But when Luna woke up, neck sore, throat feeling crushed, sores on the insides of his cheeks from where he had bit during the seizure, and with a headache spreading from where his head had collided with the bedhead, he would wonder just how much Quatre was prepared to _hurt_ him.

He wouldn't kill him, which was a condition placed on the leech. But simply placing the leech, just using it, had caused Luna more pain than any friend should ever have to endure for another.

* * *

Shinigami sat in relative silence, DeathScythe clutched in his hand. He still remembered the day he had named it.

Such a blade deserved a name. Such a beautiful, powerful masterpiece deserved a name. There were five small diamonds in its hilt, encrusted into five points of a pentagon around the base of the handle. The swords blue stained hilt hung limp from his grasp as he contemplated the lowest diamond, the one responsible for half of the blade's name.

With the blade down to the earth and the hilt up close to his eyes, he could see the small mark on just that one jewel. It was a scratch, the jewel had had it since long before he had stolen it from Elder Pavic's Tower. The mark was an outline of a simple farmer's scythe, and in honor of that mark and the death the sword would reap, Shinigami had called it DeathScythe.

Such a blade had been destined for glory from its very making. With this blade, he had sown the seeds of death throughout both the communities of magic and those of man. He didn't kill unless he had to, he considered himself a fair man. He had spread the word through the magical community so loudly that all had heard his telepathic message.

_From this time onward, all ties between mortal and mage shall be severed. Mortals are to be considered scum beneath our jewelled boots. Any telling or teaching of magical matters between mage and mortal shall be punishable by the Fires of Hell._

Shinigami was not a religous man. Furthermore, he knew how his kind reincarnated after their bodies died, and their souls never went to such a place as Hell or Heaven, but he intended for his meaning to be understood shortly enough.

He had shown promise when he was young. The Elders had whisked him away from the matters of mortals when he had been but a child. They had located him in the normal way, and had followed a thrallstone. A pair of young men had appeared at his home, and had stared at him with the eyes of men ages old. They had told his parents what he was, why he could light fires with no kindle, why he could heal a scratch in a blink. They had given his mortal parents money, in exchange for the right to take him away to a Tower where he could be instructed in magic and even other things, things his parents understood the value of more than they understood the value of magic, and had never dreamed he would be offered. He was told he would learn to read, write, do simple mathematics, learn history, apothecarian skills and if he so desired, he would learn to fence, cook, paint, sketch - anything he could possibly ask for. He would have everything, but he was afraid.

Although he was not yet old enough to have a distrust of strangers, he didn't want to go. One of the men kneeled in front of him and asked what else they could give him that would make him change his mind. He said he didn't want to leave his parents.

They were his life at that point. They lived in a remote village, and he was the only child his age. He had no brothers or sisters, only Mama and Papa, and they were the world to him.

Both young men chuckled, and promptly told him that Mama and Papa were only five seconds away should he wish it. They said that he would be assigned a guardian, an older mage who would help tutor him and keep him well adjusted. The tutor could, at any given time, just pick him up in his arms, which the young man demonstrated, then just count to five, which the man did, and then they would both be back home with Mama and Papa. When Shinigami had managed to get over his excitement at not having to leave his parents, he had looked around and been shocked to find that he was no longer in the same place in the room as he had been ten seconds ago. It was his first teleportation.

His guardian, Bronke, was a nice man. He was the one who first called him Shinigami. When asked what it meant, Bronke simply replied, "I made it up."

It was true. Shortly after Shinigami started using DeathScythe to kill all that stood in his way, people had started forming their own versions of what Shinigami meant. He made it no secret that he was a God. He drew power from the moon, after all, and that made him the second most powerful being ever to walk the earth at any one time.

He wanted to be the first.

People started calling him the God of Death, partly because he was a God in his own right, and partly because he used a sword named after Death itself. Soon after, Shinigami became a word of the language, used to convey a picture of he who leaved a trail of death behind him.

His parents had not deserved their end. Perhaps they had told someone they shouldn't have about their son being a sorcerer, perhaps they had been hunted down for it. They had been slaughtered by their own kind, by mortals who loathed sorcerers.

All because there had been communication. All because the two worlds, that of magic and that of man, had collided. He vowed it would not happen again.

Because of his status, he was taught magic in the most reputable Tower, along with his counterpart, the SunChild, Kan'shen. Kan'shen was a nice boy, but had not the heart to command the mage world in the way it had to be in this matter. Unfortunately, this made him a liability. Kan'shen would overtake him in power as he grew older, and had possibly already done so. He had to be disposed of, but Shinigami couldn't take him at his current power, at least, not with all the Elders that lived in the Tower protecting him.

He needed the magics of someone old, someone who had spent years refining their technique, and he needed to get that magic without spending years refining his technique. If he did, Kan'shen would overtake him in power and there would be no hope of overthrowing him.

He needed a shortcut, and he knew exactly where to find one.

The twin voices whispered in his head, spurred on by the grip he held on DeathScythe. The magic that had created the blade had left an imprint in it of its old masters.

Oh, if only the SunChild and MoonChild of ages past knew what he had done with their precious kingdom. The system they had fought so hard to create, the Elders they trained so they could train Summoners, the Summoners trained so they could train Healers ... all gone.

Shinigami leaned back with a tired but happy smirk. He was old, but he had made his peace.

The Fires of Hell had been created. It was a beautiful place, a place where those that tried to affiliate with mortals were sent, to live out their days in eternal punishment.

He had created, with the aid of DeathScythe, a new spell. He called it Magefire. A fire so fierce it could be dulled only by true water, the kind made by the Earth. No spell could douse it, no Elder could heal its burns. He could heal magefire burns, but it was not easy, despite his power. Nothing lesser than a Child could heal a magefire burn.

Under the depths of the sea, he had hollowed out of a rock a large cavern and filled it with air so that the water could not seep into it. He had set the entire place alight with Magefire, knowing it would burn till the ends of time, but that the water encompassing the cavern would see to it that the fire would never escape these boundaries.

For all his years, and they were many, he had placed spies everywhere. He knew when someone overstepped the bounds, and he caught up with them. He always caught up with them. A simple external teleport was all it took, and into the Fires of Hell they went.

It wouldn't have been such a bad punishment if there weren't healing spells all over the cavern. The heals kept his victims alive and in agony.

Towers rose up against him, despite their fights being futile. They had no chance. Shinigami had the sword. The sword would beat them no matter how strong a fight they presented, but present they did anyway.

Into the Fires of Hell with them. To Eternal Damnation.

He took great pleasure in sending Kan'Shen to his grave. He didn't send him to Hell, he had been but a child. Kan'Shen had not fought him, had only looked at him with sad blue eyes. Shinigami had not sent him to eternal torture, he simply ended his life. Six months later, Shinigami located him again, while he was still in his new mother's stomach, and he killed him again there. Shinigami repeated this cycle for almost five hundred years.

Kan'Shen had been a threat, although minor now that Shinigami had unlimited power from DeathScythe, but knowing that the SunChild was no longer around to be the pride and hope of the magus community filled him with satisfaction.

Shinigami was no longer satisfied, however. The fires of Hell no longer gave him pleasure, and the magical community was now in complete, stupified, fearful submission.

He had won. The worlds of mortals and mages had been successfully torn apart. Never again could the two peoples harm each other. Never again could the mortal's fear and hatred of his kind make them do rash things, make them hurt each other.

Bronke had become his right hand man. The Elder was currently the only Elder still alive, if one could call it living.

Shinigami had defiled him, broken him. He had torn his way through all the mental pathways, severed all of his memories, and generally ripped his mind to shreds.

Carefully placed shreds. Every ounce of his freedom had been stripped, causing an undying need, a thirst to obey. A thirst to be in one's employ. All the things he had once loved, healing, life, beauty, all paths in his mind linking to these things were carefully mutilated, and were now things he scoffed at. Things to be used for the gain of his employer, and occasionally himself. Bronke could do nothing his employer would disagree with, and was extremely quick to do something his employer would encourage.

This meddling in Bronke's psyche had created a few flaws in Bronke's persona, namely that of his intense need to hurt, maim and kill. It was a defense mechanism, his every thought made his brain realise just how scarred it was, and he had to lash out, he had to stop himself from being hurt. This, together with the insanity, which was only natural after all of the torture, created a being that simply could not i_be_/i without the knowledge that he wasn't the only one hurting so badly. He had to make someone else hurt that badly in order to simply survive.

Shinigami, of course, twisted this in his favour. Bronke did all of his dirty work, after a while, as Shinigami got older and more bitter, annoyed with the world and not having any desire to leave his underground cavern, where he got to watch all that pain and misery, which was really the ony thing that kept him going.

By this stage, Bronke was the only Elder left, and was vastly superior to anyone and anything. He made short work of any that defied the law set down by his employer, and after a while, Shinigami realized that he wasn't needed anymore.

Bronke had been charged with carrying on his work. Shinigami had commanded him to kill any who would break the 'Silence Clause' between mage and mortal.

Shinigami made one fatal mistake in all of this, as he threw himself upon his sword. Bronke could do nothing his employer would disagree with, and the moment he died, in Bronke's mind, he was no longer his employer. Thus, the contract was void.

Bronke did nothing but that which his destroyed mind insisted he do. He sought contracts. He did what he was told. And he tried his best to do what he was told while inflicting the most pain and terror he possibly could. In time the other defences his mind had made came back to remove his memories. He had dearly loved his charge, Shinigami, and the memories of his torture by the very one he loved festered in his mind until it simply couldn't hold them any more. He forgot about Shinigami. He forgot about DeathScythe. All he knew was the information all sorcerers had access to, the innate knowledge. He knew the general history about Shinigami and DeathScythe, but he could not have told a soul the colour of Shinigami's eyes, or the length of DeathScythe's blade, nor could he tell a soul his mother's name or his father's hair colour.

He certainly couldn't tell a soul how a blade used to commit suicide in an underground cavern managed to find its way to the grasp of one Heero Yuy.

Nor could he have told anyone how Kan'Shen's reincarnation, Quatre Raberba Winner, was slowly but surely destroying everything that Shinigami had fought to create.

The Fires of Hell had been doused. It had taken every ounce of his power and all of Duo's to do it, but the flames and the healing wards were gone. Shinigami's corpse had been located. It had decayed into a mere skeleton by the time Quatre got there, but the magic in the blood had crystallized into a scythe. Quatre took it for safekeeping, decided that Shinigami's remains belonged to his reincarnation, and that when he got his second back, this would be his welcoming gift.

Though there was a scythe, there was no DeathScythe. The sword was gone. Shinigami was no threat to Quatre, he never had been, the only threat was that sword, which he now had no way of finding.

Common sense had led him to the cavern. He knew that it had to be surrounded by water to keep in the magefire, thus it had to be in the ocean. It was simply a matter of scanning the seas.

But now he had found the cavern, found Shinigami's corpse, and not found Deathscythe or any clues to where Deathscythe could be. The only thing left to do was to search for Bronke to see what he knew and put him out of his misery.

Bronke, however, was not miserable at all.

He had a contract. Nothing at all could make him happier than a contract.

* * *

"You said you would contact me when you had a plan," the employer said quietly. "It's been a long time to concoct a plan for someone with your skills. You said you would contact me and instead I had to come check up on you."

The employee gave something of a sigh and snarl. "And I have held true to my statement. I have no plan, so I have not contacted. There are other factors," he said tersely. "Take a look at this."

The employer pushed himself off from the cottage wall and limped over to stand behind his man and look over his shoulder. A chart lay on the desk in front of the employee. It had been, at some point, a sea chart, with coloured ink markers for reefs and some forwhat appeared to be fishing grounds.

"Time of day," he said, pointing to some fresh ink column markers on the left. "My ability to get into Yuy's head and muck around with it," he said, grazing a finger over a line of new markers on the chart.

There were three new lines of markers on the chart, marked by day, namely, the last three days. They all roughly corresponded with one another.

"This makes no sense," the employer muttered. "You should be able to get into his head at any time of day."

"But I can't," the blonde said grumpily. "Only at night can I get anywhere at all. During the day, he's locked up like a bloody prison. I can't get anything to stick with him for over an hour past dawn."

"But you did before, during the attack. That was working, wasn't it?"

"Not nearly as well as I'd like. He should've been on a killing spree. I should have had to dampen it down every half hour in order to _stop_ him from killing certain people. I didn't. It was dampened. Everything I've given him has been dampened, if not completely removed."

The employer huffed. "Something is interfering with your magic. It must be something _really_ powerfully warded, or else it wouldn't be having any effect at all – wait ... you don't think Yuy's got DeathScythe on his person, do you?"

"It would explain some things." The blonde leaned back. "DeathScythe is a powerful thing. Powerful things are beautiful things, and nothing attracts royalty like beautiful things. If DeathScythe really is in the castle, like you suspected, it only figures that it would have made its way into Yuy's possession."

"Suppose Yuy has it then, and he's keeping it on his person. He'd set it aside for the night, lose most of its protection, then pick it up again in the morning, and gain enough protection to completely eradicate anything we want to cast on him."

"That's it exactly," the employee said, linking his hands behind his head. "And it didn't happen when I attacked because ... well, if you had something as beautiful as DeathScythe but knew nothing of its power, would _you_ take it with you when the city wall is under attack? No, you'd leave it somewhere safe, where it wouldn't get scratched."

"It's ceremonial..." the employer said. "It's Yuy's ceremonial blade. We know exactly where it is," he said breathily. "You completeded that part of your task well. I'd thought you would have to interrogate the minds of everyone in the castle."

The blonde shrugged. "Sometimes cold logic is easier than all the mind reading in the world."

The black haired man tapped his burned leg. It sent spikes of pain through his thigh. "Soon, it'll be healed. You still think you can tap the blade's power and heal me with it, right?"

"Well it's not like _you_ can heal it. I should be able to though." The blonde shrugged. "But don't get all excited yet," he said. "I know you still want to teach him a lesson. So, you're still up for the sister, right?"

The black haired mongrel chuckled. "I'm up for the sister, the slave, the healer, the Hunters and if she were still alive, I'd be up for the mother. Possibly even the father. I will have to go in my other form, though. It's not yet time for them to know me. When did you have in mind?"

The blonde made a contemplative look and took a deep breath, letting it out in a "Hmmm". Every muscle in his arms tensed and bulged, and his sorcerer vein stood out like the pox. He stayed incredibly still for a moment, as if lost in his own mind, but the other mage knew better. His assassin was in someone else's mind, surveying their situation, wracking their memories to discover their plans for the future.

He was probably in the mind of someone close to Yuy right at that moment. Not Yuy himself, because he'd be wearing his warded blade. He could have been in the mind of the sister herself.

Then suddenly, his veins bulged even more, and his fingers made an odd twirl. The other mage looked at them, wondering how they could bend so. Perhaps the man was a lutist? Something had to have caused that intense maneuverability.

Regardless of how it was done, it proved what was being done. He was doing more than just viewing minds, now he was changing minds.

Perhaps he just organized a nightmare for the sister tonight, or created some sort of mental illness? With this man, there was no limit to what he could make a mortal's mind do. But he left the mind presently, not lingering to watch his handiwork. It mustn't have been that entertaining.

Then he cracked a grin and said cockily, "There's no time like the present. Busy?"

* * *

Luna woke blearily at mid afternoon. He had the vaguest of senses that something was off. He struggled to wake fully, it was always a struggle to get awake and stay awake.

Something was definitely off. Wrong. But it was a normal wrong, as opposed to the wrong he had felt last time he woke up. That had been a sinister, magical wrong. This was a normal, mortal wrong.

Luna roused himself to pain, everywhere. His throat felt crushed, and he reasoned that it probably had been. His arms and fingers felt numb. There were people talking, about him, not to him.

There was a comforting hand on his shoulder, but that was part of the wrong. The hand wasn't meant to be there.

He snapped open his eyes, glaring wearily, stubbornness the only thing keeping him awake. In front of him he saw Wu Fei talking lowly to Irea.

"Leave him be. Weird as it is for a mage to have a fit, and even weirder for one to bleed without using magic, oversleeping is _not_. It's not laziness. Mages sleep when they're sick, for long periods of time. So you've been trying to wake him up for three hours –"

"Trying everything! The King even screamed in his ear!"

"It's still not unusual. They sleep. You can't wake them. They wake up when their magic tells them it's time. There's nothing we can do to control magic. If there was I would be unemployed."

There was a pause.

"Oh. Good afternoon Luna," Wu Fei said suddenly.

Wu Fei had been facing away from Luna since he had woken up. He had not seen Luna open his eyes, nor had Luna made a sound for him to hear. Irea had been facing him and still completely unaware that he was awake.

Heero's hand on his shoulder had not even told Heero that Luna had woken.

Wu Fei turned around, smiling at Luna, not even surprised that his eyes were open. Wu Fei had an odd sixth sense in regards to magic and those afflicted with it.

He just knew things. It was creepy even to Luna, who knew the reason for it.

Too much time around magic, especially unleashed magic, which Wu Fei had spent his youth combating, had made it leak into the Hunter. Even if Wu Fei didn't know it, he was as close to a mage himself as any mortal could be.

Luna scowled. Something was still wrong.

He didn't care about Irea or Wu Fei, they were irrelevant. What was relevant was the _wrongness_ of the hand on his shoulder.

Heero was sitting in a chair at his bedside. Luna lay on his side, facing away from his master, and Heero had his hand on the slave's shoulder, comforting him.

It was wrong. Luna unwrapped his arms from the blanket angrily and grabbed his master's hand, yanking it towards himself roughly.

Had Luna had any strength to him at all, the grip would have caused Heero's wrist to bruise and his body to tumble forward on top of Luna. Instead Luna just lost grip on his hand.

Heero sighed. "Yes, yes, I know," he said tiredly. He moved himself onto the bed, on top of the blankets, and held Luna close, even as Luna weakly tried to grab at his hand and pull him closer. "You're sick. You want to be held. I know."

Luna scowled. That wasn't it. It was definitely a part of it, but not the biggest part.

He had just been bedded, he'd just had some sort of a fit, and he'd be damned if he'd let his bed partner get away with just a hand on his shoulder, royalty or not. Heero was going to stay in bed with him until he felt better, and that was that.

Far from finding this display of stubbornness and attempts at force off-putting, Heero actually found it rather endearing. Luna probably couldn't lift a cup of tea at that moment, but he still thought he had a place trying to force the King's affections.

"Regardless," Wu Fei said, "He can sleep as much as he likes. Tsu _is_ right about something, there is something off about Luna. He's sick. That in itself is odd for a mage. If Luna wants to sleep for huge amounts of time and to not be rouse-able, that's a stroke of normalcy I'm grateful for."

"So we shouldn't try to wake him at all?"

"It won't help."

"Not even to eat?" Heero asked.

WuFei furrowed his brow. "Bring him food. Leave it on the bedside. If he _needs_ to eat, the magic will wake him when he smells it. If he doesn't wake up for it, he doesn't need to eat."

"Everyone has to eat," Irea said crossly.

Wu Fei raised a brow at her and smiled, as if he thought she were making a joke. "You never cease to amaze me," he said. "You are such an incredibly good healer, taught by a man like your brother, and yet you know _nothing_ about mages. It's almost as if he was protecting you."

Irea blinked, confused. It was so very rare for anyone to mention her relationship with Quatre and not to follow with some sort of insult.

* * *

Heero held a small feast the night after Zechs' arrival. He had feared that he would not be able to attend, but Luna had recovered from what Irea assumed was a seizure. He was now just sleeping, a lot, and wouldn't bother to wake up if not for food. Heero had been unable to rouse him enough to try to figure out what had happened. WuFei had eventually pushed him away to his banquet downstairs, insisting that it wasn't fair for any of them to force poor Luna to play a game of charades with them while he was so unwell.

The feast had a purpose other than to make Zechs feel welcome. Mostly it was so that he could placate Zechs with much drink, dance and food, so that when Kushrenada arrived tomorrow, Zechs would be tired and slow to cause trouble. Preferably hung over.

Things did not go entirely to his plan, however. Though Zechs did have plenty of drink, he did not appear to succumb to it, and another variable, which he had taken for granted, came to disassemble his plans.

The Princess rarely attended events, so it was quite reasonable for Heero to assume that she would not attend a banquet. It had all of the things that disagreed with her: food, dancing, and loud noises.

But of course, Relena came to the banquet, looking exactly as she should. She wore a white and red gown, her hair gathered in a knot at the back of her head. As always, Svelte shadowed her.

As Heero expected, so did Zechs. The moment she appeared Zechs had her hand for a dance, and there was nothing at all that Heero could do about it. He could see Zechs lips moving as they danced, but there was nothing he could do to hear his words or stop them.

"Has the King spoken to you about what he and I discussed last night, my Princess?" Zechs asked Relena quietly as they began a slow waltz.

Princess Relena smiled lightly. "My brother has never troubled me with matters of state," she said simply. "There's nought for me to do about them."

Zechs chuckled. "There are few women left like the Queens of old, the women who _trusted_ their men enough to let them take care of them. It is good to see one before me."

Relena smiled regally in the way of a Princess. She didn't know whether she was being paid a compliment or an insult, but because she was royalty, she didn't care. It was one of the many perks of a woman of her status, she had no interest in her brother's affairs, no need to have any interest in it, and anyone who thought that she should had no say in the matter. Relena was essentially living in a gilded cage, she was a kind hearted girl, but she knew nothing of the world outside, and she had no need to. As Zechs had said, she was blessed enough to have a trustworthy brother to ensure she never had to worry for herself or others.

Normally, when she danced, the act of keeping balance while moving made her stomach or legs hurt, or both. Wine would always give her both a stomachache and a headache, water always made her hurl, any kind of fruit juice gave her a migraine, so she was always dehydrated and exhausted. She had eaten some of the food though, which was sure to make her stomach boil.

She fully expected that by the end of the hour, she would have thrown up all of what she had eaten and some blood, her knees would be collapsing underneath her, her heart would be thumping in her ears, but not in rhythm, and the tips of her fingers would be numb.

But it was worth it, just to pretend she was alright for a few moments. She felt good about the night now already, the food was sitting well in her stomach, she would last a while longer than usual before it came back up. Her legs felt strong. Her left knee had only buckled once, normally she would have lost count by now, and the one time it had happened Prince Zechs had caught her. She felt oddly safe with this man – almost familial.

The dancing was beginning to make her dizzy, so she pulled away from her partner and gave a light curtsey. Svelte, who had disappeared from sight the moment Zechs had taken her arm, somehow reappeared instantly the moment she was off it, ready to catch her or fetch her a drink, whichever came first.

Oddly enough, her good knee buckled this time. Svelte caught her immediately, and she barely moved an inch before all of her weight was on him.

Her leg would always snap back to normal after a moment, but not this time. It completely refused to take her weight again and was sluggish to even move.

The Prince offered to carry her back to her rooms. Normally Svelte did, but she suggested that he go ahead to open doors for the Prince and show him the way to her quarters.

They arrived fairly quickly, Zechs being a strong man with a long stride. By the time they arrived, Relena's leg was back to its normal strength, which was not much, but enough for her to walk through her commons to her adjoined bedroom. Zechs set her down just inside her commons, letting her use her hard oak wood desk as support to be sure she could stand.

At this point in time, Svelte would normally set to getting the Princess everything she would need to tackle the after effects of a banquet – get her something to hurl into, prepare an incense to stop her from hurling, get a washbasin to remove the kohl from her eyes, undo her hair, and a mile long list of other tasks – but now, he stood stock still, staring at nothing rather intently.

Irea entered with a light knock while Princess Relena tested her weight on her leg. It had returned to normal now and was slightly stronger than her other leg. She sighed, irked that she had left the banquet for a problem that resolved itself so quickly.

Irea asked the Princess what had happened, and the two women both thanked the Prince for his help.

Svelte continued to stand like a statue, attending to none of his duties, and stared ahead at the room as though there was something wrong.

Relena didn't use her commons very much, as she was bedridden a lot. All of her tapestries were hung in her bedroom, and the commons was mostly empty, aside from her large and sturdy oak desk.

Suddenly, Svelte Tsu snapped to attention. "Get down!" he yelled, far more loudly than was needed to be heard. He ran to the other three in the room, who stood at the Princess' desk. With strength unexpected of his size, he grabbed the oak table and flipped it on its side, then jumped over it to the two women, one hand grabbing Irea by the arm and yanking her to the floor, the other resting on the Princess' shoulder and putting pressure on her until she sank to the floor with him.

Vaguely, he heard the end of the Prince's outburst. "-wrong with you?" he heard, but he was distracted by the teleportation that occurred behind the barricade of the oak.

The Prince of Sanq saw the runes on the ground just before he lunged for Tsu to reprimand him for his behaviour. Instead he knelt behind the desk as the teleportation started.

"I heard you had mage trouble here," he whispered. "What do they want?"

Relena let out a whimper, half from the shock of being pulled to the ground and half in fear. Irea looked out from behind their cover and watched the third teleportation rune appear.

"Don't know," Svelte said, rolling up his sleeves and fiddling with his sorcerer's bands. "Don't care. They have no place near the Princess."

A thin tendril of flame shot from Svelte's left hand and melted the metal of the Yarani band on his right. His right hand, now free of restriction, melted the other band and his flame cauterized the wound his magic had caused.

Zechs watched this in amazement. "That seemed far too easy," he said dubiously.

"It really wasn't," Svelte said. He tensed his left hand, trying to force magic through it, but cauterizing the wound had made his sorcerer vein close up almost completely. Blood couldn't flow through to get to his hand. He was stuck with his right for the rest of the fight, and he'd lost a fair amount of magic with the blood he'd lost from the band piercing the vein.

The blonde assassin had appeared by now and stared pointedly at the overturned oak table. Relena stared in fear at her slave's hands. Irea was completely white skinned.

Zechs prepared to stand up, his hand on his sword. "No," Svelte said to him, quietly, so that the mage couldn't hear. "The mage is worthless. It's more important that the Princess is protected. If someone has to get hurt fighting someone worthless, it's me. If someone should get hurt protecting the Princess, that is you."

Zechs nodded slowly. "Can you take him?" he asked.

Svelte shrugged. "Probably not," he said, holding his right hand out in front of him and staring at it intently. It burst into flames. "But the thing about fire, is that it's very distracting."

Svelte's eyes seemed to light up the more he stared at the flame. It scared the Princess. "Whatever happens," Svelte said, "Do _not_ touch me."

"Come out, little Princess," the blonde mage said in a singsong voice.

"If I say the words, _feuer frei_, you get the Princess and you _run_ out that door. Drag her if you have to," Svelte said.

Zechs nodded. "Keep him distracted, bait. Sacrifice yourself if you have to."

Svelte chuckled lowly, staring into the flames licking his fingers.

"Oh, I intend to."


	29. Fueur Frei

Chapter Twenty Nine – Feuer Frei

* * *

Five teleportation circles thundered onto the ground in the Princess' commons. The blonde mage airily peeked over his shoulder at them as his employer materialized in behind him.

The raven-haired man was not there. In his place was an ethereal form, nought but air holding up a face and some rags that seemed to fall like clothes, giving the being a semi-human appearance. The room suddenly stank of death, despair, chaos and destruction, though no one in it but the blonde mage really knew for sure what those things should smell like. The blonde only knew because those were his favourite things to be around. The form's wispy face, composed entirely of dust particles and wind, looked around suspiciously, paying no mind to the fact that not a single part of itself touched the ground.

Svelte swore under his breath. "Just what we needed," he growled to no one in particular. "A lich."

LichForm was one of the final spells a necromancer could ever hope to achieve. It was one of the few spells that required something other than magic from the caster: seven and a half years cryptbound. In order to fully attune themselves to the death of the earth, a necromancer had to spend no less than seven and a half years underground, preferably in a crypt in a graveyard, but anywhere would do, so long as there were no windows, no light, no airflow, no food, no water, and a sufficient amount of death in the earth around them. Once the period of attunement to death had been achieved, the necromancer could voluntarily leave his body and inhabit the air itself, manipulating everything in the air and earth around them that was dead. Currently, the lich's face was primarily composed of dead skin cells the lich had found in the air.

A mage in LichForm was completely invulnerable, severing its head would be just as useful as separating air, and if one did manage to sever it, it would simply reattach it or grow a new one. The only drawback was that the necromancer's body was just as vulnerable as the lich was invulnerable. With no consciousness to protect it, it would be simple to kill.

However, a lich was completely unrecognisable from its caster, which was why he had come in LichForm and not human form. He had to be certain that no one that saw his real face would live to even describe him to Yuy. He wanted to keep the King guessing and fearful for as long as he could.

"Never seen you in LichForm before, Winner," the blonde said.

Irea sucked in a breath of shock. It couldn't be her brother. She knew what the others suspected of him, but she could never have believed that her Quatre could really want to hurt people. Least of all someone close to her.

Of the lich's rags, the only thing which really had any substance to it was a cowl at the back of the lich's air-neck. The blond placed his hand just above it and swiped through the lich's face, catching the dust that gave it form in the palm of his hand. The face reappeared as though nothing had happened while the blonde mage watched the dust in his hand sparkle like pyrite.

"Pretty," he said, staring affectionately back to his lich master. He was like a dog thrown a bone, this man gave him people to hurt and lives to tear asunder, and in return, his master had his undying devotion.

Neither of them were hiding their auras. The lich was a fairly new Elder, his aura was a strange concoction of white with dark red spots. The other was old, very old, and his aura was white enough that there were no flecks or other colours in it at all. Svelte had only ever seen one aura more powerful than this one, and it had been during his encounter with Luna's leech.

When the lich spoke, it echoed, as though the walls themselves rejected the fact that this being could talk and were forcing the sound it made away from themselves. "There are three behind that oak."

"Four," the blonde corrected. "You just can't sense it because he's burning away all his dead bits."

It was true. The air around Svelte was smouldering. The calluses on his fingers had been burned away long since. He was beginning to immolate the air around him, and even burn his own skin. As he had been playing with Magefire all his life, his skin was resistant to it, but only to a point. Everything burns. His skin had begun to turn red as he prepared his fire for unleashing, and it obeyed him as though he hadn't ignored it for so long. Through slavery and prison he had suppressed it, but now it returned to him, submitting to his every whim as though it wasn't annoyed that he had snubbed it all this time.

Magefire was a one of a kind branch of magic. All magefire was the same, no matter how powerful the one that threw it was. Once a mage could cast magefire, he was limited only by his control over it.

Fire doesn't like to be controlled. It likes to burn everything it sees. The magefire spell was just as likely to burn one's enemy to death as it was to burn one's own house down. Magefire was limited only by the mage's control over what the fire did and how much of it got out, and that was no simple task. Svelte was out of practice and he was no Elder. He was out of his league and outnumbered. But he did have tricks up his sleeve.

Said sleeve was currently shrivelling up and burning.

Unfortunately for Irea, Relena's desk was not long enough for all four of them. Irea was hiding behind one of the Princess' chairs. The lich sensed her dead skin and the death of a cow in the leather in her boots, it knew she was there. It flung the chair backwards, it smacked into her back and sent her tumbling to the floor. She picked herself up, slowly sitting and turning to see the two mages, too terrified to stand or even scream. The lich pulled her by the dead skin on her head, to her feet, bringing her closer.

Svelte slowly inched away from the desk, intending to leap out from behind other nearby furniture. He knew he couldn't surprise the blonde one, but the lich couldn't sense him quite as easily. Anything near him was being incinerated, including any dead skin he might shed.

Irea finally made a sound, letting out a whimper of pain from the lich pulling on her hair using her own dead skin cells. The other mage had been watching Svelte move, using the furniture as cover. He had never once seen him with his eyes, but there was no fooling a man who could read minds. As Irea whimpered, his attention diverted from Svelte to her. "This is my sister," the lich lied.

"She's not the Princess," the assassin said, stating the obvious.

"I know," the Lich said, echoing loudly. Irea was certainly no Princess. She bore no resemblance to the King, wore simple clothes and no jewellery, and in the Lich's opinion, she was simply not pretty enough. "But I'm going to torture her until the Princess and her little friends come out."

Relena put her hands over her mouth to quieten her crying. Svelte waited to move. Once they started to hurt her they would be sufficiently distracted for him to burn at least one of them. He could never wait long enough for them to actually harm her, but the longer he waited, the less they thought about him.

The blonde mage had already forgotten about him completely. For a man so old and so smart, he was incredibly simple minded, and found it difficult to focus on things that didn't amuse him. "Or I could just walk behind the overturned desk and force them out," he said, confused.

"It's more amusing this way," the Lich said. "I want to see how long they last."

"I do like the way you think," the employee said. "But-"

"Besides, one should always have something plain as an entrée so as not to overshadow the main meal," the Lich said metaphorically. "Don't you agree?"

Irea looked upon this conversation, confused and scared that the two men would talk over her like she was a piece of meat. Svelte marvelled at the depravity his kind had sunk to.

"No," the blonde said strongly, confusing everyone. There was complete silence for a few moments.

"That has to be the first time you haven't agreed with me," the Lich said warily.

"No, I agree," the blonde said suddenly, snapping himself out of a reverie. "I just don't think she's _plain_."

That was definitely the most unexpected thing he could possibly have said. Irea, of all the women in the castle, was most certainly the most plain. She wasn't ugly by any means, but at least ugly women stood out. Irea never stood out. She was small, she had a slightly mannish jawline, she didn't look good in a corset. She was the kind of woman that appealed to sailors – definitely a woman, but not overly expensive or complicated, with something around the hips to hang onto.

The Lich took a second look at Irea and didn't see whatever beauty the blonde saw, so he tossed her unceremoniously to him. "You have her then."

Irea stumbled away from the Lich and fell into the blonde's surprisingly gentle arms. He did something that was, yet again, completely unexpected, and held her, supporting her so she didn't fall, without a single inappropriate touch.

"You want me to _defile_ this lady?" He took another glance at Irea. "This goddess?" He shook his head sadly and sighed. "There are just some women that have to be wooed."

And with that strange comment Svelte struck. The blonde assassin had provided him with the kind of distraction he had never even dreamed he might get. Both the Lich and his assassin were completely distracted at that moment, and Svelte managed a perfect hit, scorching the back of the Lich to pieces.

Though he certainly couldn't kill it, as a lich is already dead, he could seriously harm it, and if he scorched the air around them clean of anything dead, he could stop the Lich from being able to regenerate itself, forcing the necromancer to abandon LichForm and return to his human body. Once there, he could not cast Lichform again for a fair while. The time was correlated to the mages power, a powerful mage could cast it again in a minute, a less powerful mage needed a week.

This one was new to Elderhood. LichForm would take him a week to cast again, if not more.

The Lich was dissheveled by Svelte's blast, but the other wasn't so bothered, he just looked on, bored. Now that his attention was diverted from Irea, he no longer held much interest in the situation, at least, not until he got to hurt someone.

The Lich turned around, his top half turning first and his lower half flowing around with no real attachment to the rest of him. He saw Svelte and his face became sour. A brow became visible, made of dust, which became furrowed.

All of a sudden, the Lich chuckled. "I've changed my mind," he said. "Kill the Fire Mage."

The blonde sighed. "Killing is so boring," he said, taking his place across the room from Svelte. "Can I not torture him instead?"

The Lich compromised. "Kill him slowly."

The blonde gave Svelte a pitying look. "At least it will be slow," he said, as though that should comfort him.

Svelte's immolation had gotten to the point where several layers of skin had been fried off. In order to prevent further damage, the burns had bunched up, cooling the heat from the majority of his skin and moving to a single area, which burned deep into the skin. The skin of his arms, just below his shoulder, was covered in deep lines, burns so deep they seared into his muscles, but the heat did not harm him, rather, it spurred him on. The fire against his muscles did not make them shrivel and burn, rather it filled them with strength and vigour.

Heat escaped through his every pore, but it was controlled. Svelte was rather amazed that the fire agreed to his orders, after he had neglected it so long, but it seemed readily eager to obey his every whim for the moment.

Perhaps because it knew what he was planning for when things got ugly.

"I will choose how long it takes for me to die," he said lowly. "You should have known that the moment you saw these burns."

The mage grinned. He knew what Svelte intended to do. The Lich could see it too. "Lets see if I can't kill you first," the blonde said.

He belonged to an odd school of magic, a very new one, known as Mind Melding. It was created by a mage who had been horribly tortured, who realised that when he heard of other people who had gone through similar experiences, he didn't feel as bad recalling their experience as he did his own. He sought to do the same thing with his own memory, to keep it there, but make himself removed from it, as though it had happened to someone else. He succeeded. By corrupting and even severing the pathways the mind used to communicate, he could disrupt the flow of emotion to a particular memory or any kind of brain function, or, he could disrupt the flow of logic and allow only emotion.

The blonde had done this to Heero. He had found something that made Heero very angry, the thought of Luna being friends with his enemy, and taken the path that his brain used to connect that emotion with that memory, and connected it with everything else, creating a man that flew into a fury over things he could normally control.

What the blonde mage didn't know, was that for a long time in the past, for several hundred years, he was suffering the worst kind of torture any man has ever experienced, as the one person he truly loved used magic to rip his mind to pieces. Thirty years ago, he had been released from that torture. At first, he had tried to set things right. He had severed the pathways. He had vocated this new school, taught it to some so that it could spread, and hopefully help some people.

Unfortunately, separating the pathways was not enough. Even having the memory of this torture, without the pain attached, was enough to destroy him.

The mage's mind is incredibly resilient, and so, it found the only way to save the was not to remove the pathway to the memory, but the memory itself. It couldn't help the insanity, however, nor the original destruction. He did not remember, but he was also just as evil and insane as he had been under the torture.

Had Svelte been human, the blonde assassin could quite easily have removed all of his memories and replaced them with fabricated ones about squids, all in a mere moment.

Svelte was lucky, however. A mage's mind was naturally repellent to Mind Melding, and the mage could not fiddle in his mind unless he wanted him to. He could still read his thoughts though, if Svelte didn't guard them well enough. Luckily, his mind was currently on fire, so it would not be easy to read.

Because Mind Melders were so restricted in what they could do to other mages, they tended to delve into other paths of magic as well. This one could heal, cast runes, and do many other things.

He started with water. No conjured water could douse or suffocate magefire, so it was an almost completely pointless attack when the typhoon drenched Svelte. The heat from his skin boiled the water almost before it touched him, and by the time it had hit him it had already evaporated.

The assassin knew that this attack was harmless, he wasn't stupid, but he continued to thrust water through his hands until he had used all the blood in his hands and forearms and had to wait until more magic filled blood circulated to them. Had he made this attack using some sort of curse of equivalent power, Svelte would have been dead had he not dodged or deflected it.

From where the water had reached Svelte, a massive cloud of steam rose. The carpets weren't even wet. None of the water had lasted that long.

But now Svelte couldn't see anything.

He had only the sound of the teleportation runes thundering to the ground to tell him that the mage was moving, but he couldn't see where to.

He appeared on his right side and immediately threw a Death curse at his face. The curse hit him right in the cheek, but Svelte was quick witted, jumping back and burning the flesh from the right side of his face before the curse could latch on and take effect.

He was lucky to have done so, because a Death curse was appropriately named for its effect.

The assassin had followed him, and Svelte could feel through the steam that he had summoned a blade. The only reason he knew this was because the blade came into the room at normal room temperate, then he sensed the heat of the steam and his own flame begin to warm it to the rest of the room. But for now, he knew where the assassin was, and what he was trying to hit him with.

For a while they fought, Svelte eventually having no choice but to burn away the blade until the iron became hot and he couldn't sense it anymore, but by that time the blade had become brittle and useless, and the assassin would summon another, in what would have been an endless cycle.

The assassin was playing with him. His efforts become slow, and as he struggled, the mage would ease off on his attacks so that Svelte could keep up. It would have been an excellent training exercise had the assassin not intended to kill him the moment he fell to the ground, exhausted.

Svelte had no choice but to do what he had planned to do from the start. He had seen this coming when he had seen their auras.

But it was likely that they had seen this coming when they had seen his burns.

So with one final, internal wish of farewell and good fortune to his beloved mistress, he began the incantation.

* * *

WuFei and MeiRan had just arrived at the Princess' door. The moment it had been spotted, DoorGuards lying dead on the floor, boarded up the same way that Heero's had been during the first attack, they had been sent for.

Heero was already there, fuming, but it was natural rage this time.

They had just begun to ram the door, trying to get it open, when they heard Svelte singing.

His voice had gone deep, impossibly deep for a man his size and temperament.

"SHIT!" WuFei yelled, pressing his ear to the door, trying to be sure.

Two explosions rocked the castle, sending vibrations through the floor one after the other.

"Fueur Frei!"

Then there were heavy footfalls behind the door, then Zechs crashed violently through it, dragging Princess Relena through behind him. Irea ran out with them.

There was but a moment where they could all see inside the room.

WuFei and Heero got one small look at the attackers, the Lich as he teleported away, and the blonde assassin as he chuckled and sent Heero a mock salute.

All this was seen through a bed of flames. Svelte's spell had opened a portal to the realm of Magefire. This was not abnormal for a fire mage, they usually used these portals instead of teleporting, what was abnormal was that Svelte was using his own body as the portal.

Magefire was all about control over the uncontrollable flame. In the moment Svelte had realised he had been defeated, he had simply released his control over the flame.

It was devastating him. His blood had turned into lava, boiling his veins open and cauterising them all at once. The burns on his arms had reached his chest and flames were licking out of them and every other pore of his body. When he spoke more of his incantation, his words were fire as it poured from his lips. His eyes had gone the bright luminescent blue of an extremely hot flame, as had the roots of his hair. The rest of his hair had changed from blonde to blood red.

He was beginning to lift off the floor. Heat rises.

Upon seeing this, WuFei slammed the door shut, resting his back against it to brace it that way.

The Princess was a mess, screaming and crying, shamelessly on her knees in the middle of the floor. Irea was not much better off.

Zechs' Honor Guard had shown up, further crowding the hall. "_Back off!_" WuFei roared, his voice carrying far. "_Everyone OUT!"_

The paint on the Princess' door began to peel from the heat on the other side.

Then another voice, carrying from the end of the hall, screamed out, "_MAKE A HOLE!"_

Like magic, people parted to let Sally, the medic of WuFei's team, through. She carried a huge tower shield, as tall as the Princess and more than three times as wide, and a dripping wet blanket over one shoulder.

The shield WuFei took and braced at the door, pushing it shut with as much force as he could. "_Finish it Tsu! Finish it!"_

The fire wouldn't respond to commands from a mere mortal. WuFei would have known that if not for the silence clause.

Instead it burned brighter. They could hear, beneath the whirling and whooshing of wind and flame, the sound of Svelte's misplaced voice, deep and strong and angry, talking in a language like theirs but not. "_Fueur Frei!" _he sang again, then began another verse.

"Not more," MeiRan said. "He won't survive another one!"

Relena howled.

"Three verses," WuFei said. "Three final blasts. If they're still in there when he finishes, they'll be disintegrated and we won't even know about it."

The next few moments were a mess of confusion and doubt. No one but the Hunters seemed to know what they were doing, and the Hunters seemed to know that rather well.

WuFei had wrapped the sopping wet blanket around his shoulders and gotten a firm grip on the warded tower shield.

Whatever he was preparing for, it did not look good. Or dry.

WuFei's eyes darted around the corridor. "Hold on to something," he said to no one in particular. "I can feel it in my feet."

A fair few moments passed with Svelte's song continuing before anyone else began to feel it in their feet. The stone floor began to hum in wait, the same way any surface trembles at a lion's roar.

When the end of the song finally came, Svelte's voice had become more and more displaced and deep. His usual soft tenor became a rugged and dark dissolution of death and power.

It seemed to affect WuFei the most, then Sally and MeiRan, then the other Hunter's of his band, and to his surprise, Heero, more than the others. For some unimaginable reason, Heero could _feel_ that voice piercing into his soul, whispering to a part of him that he was sure he had never known was there before.

An odd sense of normality accompanied it all. He was used to thinking about magic and knowing that it was _wrong_, that it wasn't possible in all the laws of the universe. But today he could feel the thunder in the stone floor and hear the tone of Svelte's voice, and he felt as though it must be real, it must be true, it was as usual and commonplace as any other battle that may take place. Everyone else but the Hunters, even Trowa, looked around with a sense of wonder and fear, as though it were impossible and godlike behaviour from Svelte, but Heero could, for some reason, tell that it was normal.

It was something that made him different, made him feared, but it didn't make him any less commonplace. This occurrence seemed to Heero for all the world as though it was _normal_.

Heero could see in WuFei's concentrating gaze that he not only was used to this and that he knew it was normal too, but that he was more so. He had somewhat more of a sense of knowledge in it.

WuFei understood magic. Somehow, even with the silence of the sorcerers, WuFei had managed to form a rudimentary understanding of how and why it all worked. He _knew_ what Svelte was doing. He _understood _what Svelte was doing. Not only did he think it normal but he thought it so normal that it was a predictable battle strategy.

If WuFei thought it predictable, then surely the other mages had thought it even more so.

They did. At the last moment, both the assassin and the Lich had fled.

No one would ever know it, but the Lich fled a moment too late. He was weaker than his assassin, and dead skin and cloth is more susceptible to magefire than the skin and protective wards of a mage.

By the time his teleportation had finished, the Lich was burning. The consciousness was forced out of the Lich and back into it's now exhausted master, the pain of magefire burns clinging, phantom-like, to his entire body. He hissed in the pain and the shock of it, then forced himself to relax. His assassin sat beside him, tenderly stroking his forehead, and when the master allowed it, the assassin pressed into his mind and gingerly severed all the pathways of his mind that were convinced they were still burning.

When done, the assassin smiled affectionately at him. "I saved your cowl," he said, holding up the purple garment he had rescued. It was drenched. The man must have dunked it in the water cistern to put out the embers.

His master licked his lips, looking to his assassin with a sort of wonder. "You are so thoughtful about the strangest things," he said.

The assassin beamed at him, his smile wide and his teeth as white as snow.

* * *

There was a lot of steam involved in the process of dousing the corpse of Svelte Tsu. After a complete failure to put out the fire that had become of his body, and many hours of terse discussion between WuFei's team of hunters, and a final, strong word from Zechs about Svelte's heroism, it was decided that he would be taken to the Princess' balcony, the largest veranda in the castle. There they constructed a Jirean style funeral pyre, and there he would burn until nature doused the flame or he burned through all the wood on his pyre.

The Princess could do nothing but cry for him, and, although their original mission of torturing her had technically been a failure, the two mages that had intruded considered it a massive success.

The necromancer's primary contentment was that the Fire Mage was dead. His vengeance had been served hot, not cold, but he refused to be picky about it. He would have preferred to have killed the rat by teleporting him into an iceberg – a slow, cold, fireless death – but he was not to complain about the death he had received instead. A death was a death, after all.

Secondarily, the Princess, though not raped, mutilated, or dead, was as distraught as she would have been had they continued with the original plan. This was a bonus.

Thirdly, the Prince of Sanc was involved, and he was understandably rather upset about the whole thing, which the necromancer decided could only harm his relationship with Yuy.

All in all, the only thing that had gone wrong was that his assassin seemed to have a crush. An absurd, obsessive, worshipping, compulsive crush, which was expected because the man was an obvious lunatic. What was not expected was the fact that the crush was completely kind in nature.

The assassin did not take kindly to teasing on the subject, nor did he like the offer of kidnapping the wench. Strangely enough, all the assassin wanted was for that woman to be left to live her life however she saw fit, with naught but wellwishes and compliments from him.

It was _peculiar_.

* * *

Heero left his sister in Irea's trusted companionship that night. The slave he would normally trust to comfort her was currently burning her balcony to bits, but even with that destruction, he felt an odd sense of pride.

Svelte Tsu had been barely an adult when Heero had taken him in. The boy had scorched his mother's attacker, and for that Heero loved him. He had served Heero diligently and loyally for years, and then he had moved to serve Relena just as purposefully, and for that, Heero loved him.

He had magic, and for that, Heero hated him. He had always refused to express remorse for it, and for that Heero hated him. He had fallen in love with his sister, and she had fallen in love with him, and for that, Heero despised him.

But that night, Svelte had sacrificed his life to save that of his sister, and in doing so he had probably saved the lives of Prince Zechs and Irea as well. In saving Irea, he had no doubt saved Heero as well.

That man was a champion. If he had survived, Heero would have had him knighted. In private, of course, and Svelte would have been sworn to secrecy, because the people could not have handled a mage being handed such an honor.

Heero had a lump in his throat as he left his sister with Irea. He knew that Irea couldn't calm her. He knew that when exhaustion forced her to either calm down or collapse, Irea still would not be able to soothe her, and neither would he. Only Svelte could calm her now.

Relena would mourn Svelte until the day she died, and for that, Heero hated him.

But not nearly as much as he hated himself, when he suddenly realized the error he had made.

His sister had been attacked, and the attackers had more than likely gotten away without a scratch. These were men that could _teleport_. _Frequently._

And he had stayed with WuFei trying to sort out what to do with Tsu's corpse, then he had stayed with Relena.

It was well into the early hours of the morning, and he hadn't even taken _inventory_.

Where the hell else had they gone after attacking Relena, keeping everyone nice and distracted?

He would learn the next day that the Royal Records room had been infiltrated. Papers were everywhere, things were a mess. No one could even figure out what records had been taken.

But neither the Records Room nor the Treasury were where Heero suddenly started sprinting to.

He knew that there was only one room in the castle that held anything of value. Only one place, one room that held one great treasure, and suddenly, with great clarity, he knew what they took.

The room he ran to was his own.


	30. Her Hair Is Not The Only Red Thing

I left such a huge cliffhanger, huh? Well you can all relax after you read the first line of this. And then kill me when you read the last.

Before you kill me, go read the prologue of Prescience. I got tired of Luna so I made a story that's got more Duo in it. _All kinds of Duo_. I'm not kidding. It has Victim!Duo, Godofdeath!Duo, Cheeky!Duo, AbsolutelyFuckingInsane!Duo ... no Lunas in sight. Well, not yet. It will end up with a KinkyS&M!Duo. And more Evil!Quatre. I seem to be doing that all the time ...

* * *

MoonChild

Chapter Thirty – Her Hair is not the only Red Thing

* * *

It was in the dead of night when he opened the door to his quarters, and the first thing he saw was Luna. All sorts of relief flowed through him when he realized that he was paranoid, and that Luna was not gone.

He stumbled forward, then turned back, mentioning to the Doorguard not to disturb him that night. They nodded the affirmative.

Heero walked into the room, shutting the door behind him.

Luna was sitting, hunched over his desk, breathing deeply in sleep. Underneath him was a large scroll of paper and a quill, obviously from his lessons with WuFei.

Heero reached out and softly touched Luna's hair as he slept. He put the stopper on the bottle of ink, now dried to uselessness, and moved it into one of the drawers of the large oak desk.

Luna didn't stir. The emotionlessness of his face as he slept betrayed how exhausted he was.

There was a single candle on the desk, which Luna had been using for light to copy the letters WuFei had written on the scroll. It had burned down to the point where what little light it gave was not enough to see whether Luna's copied letters were any good or not. Heero was glad he could not see them. He knew that they would be an affront to the language.

Luna was just that horrible at it.

Heero slowly eased the quill from Luna's lax fingers, staring at it in confusion. He was sure he had said at some point that Luna would have one of Wing's feather's for his quill, and he was using a duck feather now.

He shook his head and resolved to fix it later. For now he had to get Luna to bed.

Luna.

Bed.

Luna.

Luna was here. The realization dawned on him again, having been put out of his mind while he tidied the desk.

Luna was still here.

He didn't know when or how it happened, but within seconds he had leaned over Luna's sleeping form, wrapped one arm around his stomach, the other supporting himself in the awkward bent over position, and buried his face in Luna's hooded hair.

All of a sudden he was there, pressed behind him, and Luna was slowly waking, turning to see him.

There was practically no light, so the ink smudge all over Luna's cheek where he had been sleeping was at first passed off as a shadow.

After a moment, though, Heero saw what it was, and there was something incredibly _sexy_ about it.

Heero didn't know what it was about that smear that was arousing. He knew that within seconds of seeing it, he was no longer just holding Luna like a child who had had a bad day, now he was kissing him like a man who had a gorgeous, ink-smudged slave underneath him. Hungrily. Greedily.

Luna had now successfully woken up and blinked himself to awareness. He was in an awkward position, bent over his master's desk, his master leaning over his body, his face turned so that his mouth could be taken.

Heero suddenly left his mouth, and went to his neck, Luna's hood being a horrid annoyance in his way. Luna went to push it back, but Heero would have none of that, instead pulling out the pins that held it into Luna's hair, and casting it off his head entirely.

His hands were then at Luna's waist, pressing their bodies awkwardly together again.

It became clear to Luna that he would have to stand up. The memory of what they had done only the previous night was playing havoc with his body. He was exhausted and his head still hurt, but he could remember being made love to.

And he was not about to reject a second round, especially not when he didn't have time to secondguess it. All he had time to do at that point was feel Heero's breath, tongue and teeth on his neck, and to remember the feel of him inside of his body.

He rose off the chair, feebly trying to kick it away, but Heero's chair was a thing of sturdiness, solid and heavy and not about to budge. Luna expected Heero to move it for him, but that wasn't about to happen.

Instead, Heero pushed Luna close to the desk and squeezed himself between Luna and the chair.

With the change in angles so that they were better aligned, Luna could suddenly feel exactly how needy his master was. And it was then, his master's hands on his waist, his knees slowly nudging Luna's apart, that Luna realised.

He was about to be bent over a desk and taken from behind.

The whole revelation was pushed from his mind when his master's hand slid down from his waist, over his hip to the hem of his tunic, then under it, lifting the garment up. His hand trailed, not lightly, over Luna's sex and untied the drawstring on his pants, then delved inside, where he immediately set to pleasuring him.

Luna could feel his master's arousal pressing into his backside. He was almost as interested in it as he was in the hand that was rubbing him. He had the urge to lean back into Heero, to push himself wantonly against his lover, and he did.

He didn't get close enough, his master's and his own clothing in the way.

Neither of them really knew what had come over Heero. It was probably a mixture of adrenaline and fear and the fact that the night before, he had come off a dry spell of a few months. The fact that Luna only seemed to want to push back against him didn't really help him to calm down.

Heero didn't have a habit of having sex outside his bedroom, or even his bed for that matter, so he knew there was no oil in his desk drawers. He was also a very proper person, who had never spat in his life. Which meant this would be dry.

His mouth was still attached to Luna's neck, and Luna was grinding against him fervently. Luna moaned, and it was such a loud moan that Heero could feel it through his lips.

_The hell with it,_ he thought, as he removed his hand from Luna's pants. Luna seemed upset at the loss, but still pressed into Heero, obviously wanting something more fulfilling than his hand.

Heero pulled Luna's pants to the floor, and once down Luna stepped one leg out of them, spreading his legs and then pressed himself back to Heero.

Luna could obviously tell the difference between two layers of clothing separating them and just one, because he lolled his head back on Heero's shoulder and began panting heavily.

It wasn't going to work that way and they both knew it. Although it was highly tempting simply to let Luna push his backside into his clothed erection, as it was pulling some rather pleasing sensations from his body, Heero pulled away.

He put one hand between their bodies to caress Luna's bare skinned bottom. The other he placed on the boy's back, gently applying pressure to get him to lean over the desk.

As Luna complied, Heero pushed a finger inside of him. Luna could immediately tell it wasn't slick with anything. Heero's hands were big and his fingers were long – talented, some may have said, but Luna had nothing to compare it to. All he knew was that it wasn't sliding in and out as easily as it had the last time and that he knew another finger would bring discomfort –

Up until the point where his master began to press into his prostate with every thrust of his finger. After that he knew absolutely nothing.

He was right though, the second finger did bring discomfort, but it was partly because his legs weren't spread far enough, and partly because there was no lubrication. But the discomfort was swiftly replaced as Heero touched him, deep inside, as if there was something there that needed to be stroked and worshipped as much as any god.

Heero's mouth latched onto his neck again.

Luna panted, trying to spread his legs further and push himself back at the same time. He would be happier when Heero was on top of him, bearing down on him with his body, pressing him into the desk. Until then, he had to make to with trying to get those fingers to fill him as much as he could.

Heero's third finger brought more discomfort and a stretching pain, but the sensation made him remember the night before again, and despite the pain, he knew what was coming was going to be good.

It didn't hurt that badly. Only a little sting as he was stretched. When his master removed his fingers, Luna had to bite back an unseemly grunt of discomfort.

But his master was behind him again, close now, and Luna knew what was coming. His arousal pressed into the hard oak desk underneath him and he scrambled to get a hold of the sides of the desk.

It was only when Heero pressed against him, one hand firmly on his hip and the other holding himself up on the desk, that Luna realised exactly how much he was enjoying it.

So much so that his headache had gone away.

And then Heero was pushing inside of him, and there was a flash of pain and a grunt of pleasure from Heero, and Luna realized that it was really, really, really good.

The desk was hard and unyielding beneath him. Heero had, as Luna had expected, pressed himself so hard against Luna that he was pinned completely against the wood surface.

Pressing back against Heero at this point would be akin to squirming, there was so little space between them.

The desk was it, Luna realized. Where the bed had gave way and bent to allow Heero to press close to him, the desk did not. It hadn't even budged the whole time. Heero was pressed right up against Luna, and the desk gave no leeway, so they really were as close as they could get.

It was wonderful.

Heero slowly drew out of him and Luna hated it, but then he pressed back inside and he nearly cried. His heart was beating something fierce and he could see black in his vision, it was so black that he could distinguish it from the shadows cast by the candle that was almost out.

Heero drew out again, a little faster, and Luna could hear both of them panting, ultra loud, in his ears. His master thrust back inside, and pressed him into the desk, and hit his prostate, and Luna screamed as he came.

It hit Heero with a bit of a shock as Luna tightened around him, then his entire body went limp on the desk. Heero blinked, holding still inside his slave.

He had done a bit more prostate stroking than necessary while he had prepared him, but he had done it to distract him from the pain. It appeared to have done the job a bit better than he had expected.

Luna slowly seemed to rouse again, and as he did, Heero began moving, slowly, deliberately, so that the boy could feel every little thing and get aroused by it all all over again.

Luna came around very, very quickly, and Heero was forcefully reminded that Luna was young, probably barely into sixteen. The boy had a sexual system in full health, even if the rest of him wasn't, and Heero was rather satisfied with that to be the case.

Luna squirmed against him, but as they were, the beautiful boy could barely move. The only thing that gave any movement was Heero's thrusts, and they slowly got harder and faster as Luna showed all the signs that he enjoyed them.

Somewhere between when it was just getting fast and when it was becoming animalistic, the parchment Luna had been writing on got torn as Luna scrunched his hands in it.

At around that moment, both Heero and Luna became very fond of Heero's desk, as it stood rock solid and unmoving beneath them, serving as a perfect anchor point.

Heero was stuck in the feel of Luna, his body was warm and yielding, his back moulded perfectly to his chest as he thrust into him. The whole situation had veered far out of his control, and he had let it, and all the gentleness he usually had reserved for Luna was gone.

Ever since he had hit the boy, he had been incredibly gentle, forcefully so, and it had taken its toll, as he was not that way by nature. He was not a cruel or harmful person, but he wasn't gentle. By nature he was a forceful and smug person, who liked to grab what he wanted, hold it uncomfortably tightly, and do whatever the hell he wanted with it.

So he grabbed Luna by the hip, holding him just tight enough to bruise but not nearly tight enough that Luna could register the pain through all the other things his body was showing him, and he released the control he had been holding.

From there it was no longer making love or even sex, it was mating. There was something bestial and animalistic about it, like they were wolves. It was two animals racing toward completion, no sentient thoughts involved at all, just the ancient drive all species have.

Find your pack. Stay with your pack. Eat. Sleep. Mate.

Wolves mate for life.

Heero slumped against Luna, spent and blissful, as Luna collapsed, his body spasming lightly as his orgasm trailed off into sleep.

It took Heero a moment to come out of it. His entire body, which had been taut as a bowstring from the moment Luna had fitted that morning, had suddenly relaxed and it was wonderful. As he pulled out and away from Luna, the slave slid back, and Heero had to stop so that Luna wouldn't fall to the floor.

He clumsily pulled his pants back up with one hand, keeping another on Luna, who was out cold.

Apparently his sex drive was healthy, but seeing as that had been sated, his unhealthy body had taken over. Heero carried him into their bedroom, and his urge to be gentle with Luna returned as he placed him tenderly on the bed, then climbed under the covers with him.

Heero knew he had found the only slave he would ever truly keep.

After all, wolves mate for life.

* * *

It rained the night Treize Kushrenada was scheduled to arrive. The castle had received information that they were due in the morning, but, as expected with rain, they arrived late that night.

At the time of their arrival, Zechs was, oddly enough, completely out of sight.

Once they entered the drenched courtyard, their horses slipping on the cobblestones they cantered upon, several things became apparent to King Heero.

The first was that Mariemaia did indeed exist.

The second was that she had the reddest hair he had ever seen.

The third was that she was, indeed, very ill.

And the fourth was that it appeared as though all of the wild, ridiculous rumours surrounding Prince Milliardo and his time as a hostage in Chalc were completely true.

There was a rumour that Milliardo had adopted a child in the Kushrenada household as if it were his own. Heero saw with his own eyes how gently Milliardo took the still form of Mariemaia from what he assumed was her father's arms so that he could dismount.

There was another rumour that Milliardo had fallen in love with a nobleman in the Kushrenada household. Heero watched as Treize Kushrenada bent to kiss the forehead of his daughter in Milliardo's arms, and as he did Milliardo bent his head to rest their foreheads together.

Then there was the rumour which was most preposterous – that Milliardo was not being tortured under Chalc's hold.

Milliardo actually looked healthy. He looked healthier than his twin, Zechs. He was leaner, with muscles that suggested he did less heavy lifting and more cardio. He glowed in the rain like some sort of pure, blonde god.

And he was damn good looking, up until the point where he and Treize got closer to the King, and it became apparent that Milliardo was a head taller than him and had to duck his head slightly to get under the roof of the entryway Heero stood in.

He stared up at the hostage Prince and at the Duke that followed.

"Prince Milliardo," he nodded. "Duke Kushrenada," he added, looking at Treize.

Irea stood behind him, visibly pining after the young girl in Milliardo's arms.

Heero nodded in her general direction and she fled forward, her hands immediately on the little girl's forehead.

"Set her down over there, please, Your Majesty," she said to the Prince, who obeyed, following Irea's pointing hands to a small table erected outside. "It's not for long, she can't be kept in the rain," she said worryingly.

As the Prince moved past the King, he could hear small, rasping death gasps from the girl.

She was _not_ well at all.

The Duke bowed deeply to Heero, then, halfway through it, he secondguessed it and sank to one knee, placing his forehead on his raised knee. He looked about to start sobbing.

Irea had, within a matter of seconds, wrapped little Mariemaia's head in a pristine white towel. It went over her face, covering her mouth and nostrils. Milliardo looked offended for a moment, and Irea seemed to sense it. "To keep the germs out. New place, new sicknesses. She's weak enough to catch anything at this point."

With that, Irea carefully picked the girl up herself. "No visitors for at least another half hour. I need to assess her condition. When I'm happy she will survive my absence or someone else's presence, I will get you. Not the other way around." With that, she began to walk away, into the castle, with MarieMaia in her arms.

Prince Milliardo looked as though he wanted to follow, but the Duke was still rooted to the spot on one knee in front of Heero.

"Thankyou," he said softly.

Heero ignored it. "The three of us will move to a minor sitting room, where we will discuss what is to be done with this … fragile … political situation."

"Anything you request, Your Majesty," Treize began. "What if my daughter should call for me?"

"And myself," Prince Milliardo interjected. He was obviously aware of his regained political standing. On King Yuy's land, he was a Prince. He could demand anything he liked. "I will not sit by while my girl is sick and you debate what to do with us. I will be wherever she can easily call for me."

Heero looked him in the eye. "That would be why the three of us will be discussing this outside of my Healer's rooms. Not what any of us are used to, and it reeks of absinthe, but it is conveniently placed."

Prince Milliardo visibly relaxed and Heero could practically see himself rise in the man's esteem.

"Get off your damn knees, Treize," Milliardo said. "You're not on trial here."

That would have been the perfect moment for Zechs Merquise to show up, declare that Treize was in fact on trial, and proceed to make a fuss. But Zechs Merquise was nowhere to be seen. Not one of his Honor Guard were there, nor was Lucrezia Noin.

It was rather off-putting.

Heero grunted and led the two men into the castle, following the same halls that Irea would have rushed through but moments ago, until finally they reached the communal room outside the rooms she had to care for her patients in.

Not all were privileged enough to warrant Irea at their bedside. Most had to come to her and her handmaidens, in the grand suite which she had taken over from King Jarekshi's old healer. He had been angry to be unseated so easily and swiftly, but after the nation's King died under his care, no one rose to his cause.

It was obvious upon entering the room that it was a waiting room of a Healer, from the layout and the furniture, but the mystifying thing about it was that that was the only similarity to the usual waiting room of a Healer.

The smell of absinthe was everywhere, as Heero had warned, but that was the only foul smell. The rooms and chairs were devoid of blood. There were no jars filled with leeches. The entire place was spotlessly clean. Milliardo seemed very doubtful about it the moment he walked in, looking around dubiously, already doubting that a woman so obviously denying the known medical trend could save Mariemaia.

Treize looked like a man on his own deathbed already. If he had any misgivings about Irea, one could not have picked them from his haggard and mournful expression.

Heero had them seated at a table with him. The servants had been told they would be dining here, and were already bringing them wine as they sat down.

No one could hear anything from the rooms adjoining. Heero knew Irea and Mariemaia were in one of them, he was even sure which one, but no sound was coming forth.

"She will tell us when she knows something," Heero began, when the door he knew Irea and Mariemaia were behind was opened harshly.

Irea stalked out, threw open a cabinet, found what she was looking for, took a single glance at the men at the table and stalked back into the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. In her gaze, it was obvious that she was just _daring_ anyone to bother her.

"She'll hit you if go in there," Heero said nonchalantly. "Nobility or not."

Milliardo seemed both affronted at the idea and pleased that someone with dedication were caring for Mariemaia.

Still, Zechs was nowhere to be seen.

Heero began to wonder if Zechs had somehow already done the job. Treize looked fairly ill, it was possible he had already been poisoned.

If that were the case, Zechs was one crafty devil indeed.

But Treize was not swaying. He just looked grief-bitten.

"So," Heero began. "The two of you are not at one another's throats, as I would expect of a hostage and his warden. Pray tell."

Treize took a deep breath, as through about to say something, then he looked at Milliardo, who looked back and shrugged. To the onlooker, it was an odd guesture, but Heero knew it for what it was. Treize was holding his input until after the Prince had spoken, showing respect for someone of higher station.

Yet another thing not expected of a hostage and his warden.

"It's as much your tale as it is mine," Milliardo said.

"Princess Dorothy is my second cousin, Your Highness," Treize said. "She called on me some years ago and said she tired of keeping His Majesty in her dungeons." At this Treize made a face, as though the thought disgusted him. "She said to me, in these words, "I have used the stick on him, with no result. Now you must use the carrot.""

Treize heaved a colossal sigh. "I was ordered to take His Majesty from her dungeon and keep him in my home, well cared for but caged, as if he were some kind of pet."

Milliardo grimaced. Neither of the two appeared to enjoy the tale.

Heero didn't much either. It was unravelling mostly as he had suspected it would.

"So I did," Treize continued. "Apart from treating him like a pet. But as time went on it became apparent that the Prince is as resistant to the carrot as he is to the stick."

"Treize was under duress," Milliardo said. "He was constantly barraged from the Catalonia's to get me to do things – mostly to aggravate my father and brother. They wanted to try and marry me to Princess Dorothy – so that Sanc would have no real claim to keep fighting Chalc, because technically, our marriage would have made the two Kingdoms one.

"I feel that it is important that you understand, Dorothy's mother was my aunt. I am more closely related to her than Treize is. That kind of travesty of a marriage would have been completely against everything my home country stands for."

"Though it isn't illegal to wed cousins in Chalc," Treize said, "It is frowned upon and considered disgusting by most. It is not only Sanc that disagrees with it."

It was obvious that Treize was either disgusted by the idea of cousins marrying, or he was disgusted by the idea of Milliardo marrying Dorothy.

Judging by how closely the two sat together, Heero guessed it was more that Treize wanted Milliardo to himself.

Irea opened the door, quietly this time. "Heero," she whispered. "Lady Mariemaia could use one of Lord Barton's pick-me-ups. Do you think you can fix that for me?"

Heero motioned to a servant. "Send for Lord Barton and tell him to bring his Lady," he said softly.

The servant nodded and left as Irea shut the door again.

Treize looked at him, his brow furrowed. "What was that about? Nevermind," he said. "Whatever it means it's _got_ to be better than what we had at home."

"They were bleeding her every second day," Milliardo said. "Bleeding! A child! Can you believe that? She was so pale and dry she couldn't walk or talk. She actually got _better_ during the ride here!"

"For a while," Treize said. "I'm glad we didn't turn back though. It didn't last."

"Irea doesn't believe in bleeding or leeches," Heero said. "She does not agree with most common practices. But her results speak for themselves. She got my sister walking again when no one else could keep her from fainting. If Irea can not help your daughter, no one can."

There was a tense pause, where Prince Milliardo seemed upset at the idea and the Duke just nodded mournfully.

"By the way," Heero added. "I mentioned in the reply I sent that Prince Zechs may be here. He is."

Milliardo looked up. "I assumed you would have kept this from him. I assumed that since he did not ride to greet us that you had already ushered his departure, to avoid … mess."

Heero clenched his jaw. "There would have been more "mess" had I kept secrets. He would have done all he could to make my life miserable once he found out."

Milliardo's brow was furrowed intensely. "Then … why is he not here? My brother has never before not greeted me at the door."

Heero bit his lip. "In honesty I do not know. I had actually expected him to have organized some sort of stunt by now."

There was a tense pause, followed by a knock on the door. It was opened and a servant came inside, bowed deeply and announced the arrival of Lord Barton.

Trowa came inside with a large, fluffy dog at his heels.

"Your Majesties, Duke," he nodded. "Irea wanted Lady?" he questioned to Heero, who nodded.

The dog's ears perked at the mention of her name.

Heero jerked his head in the direction of the room Irea and Mariemaia were in. Trowa dutifully went to the door and bowed to them before going through with the dog.

Treize furrowed his brow. "A dog?" he said stupendously.

Heero chuckled. "It's actually one of Barton's ideas. It works surpisingly well. If you ever want someone to be calm, still and content, there is no drug that will do that as well as a well trained dog."

Milliardo obviously looked doubtful, as if he had just walked in on a gypsy play and asked them to heal Mariemaia.

A few moments later, Trowa opened the door and stepped out.

"Cute kid," he said. "She looks like she just needs sleep, to be honest."

With that, he was about to step out from the room, bowing, but Treize called to him. "Wait!"

Trowa froze mid-bow, then straightened with a performer's flourish of his hand. "I am at your disposal, good sir!" he said, bowing again.

His circus antics were lost on Treize, who was focused on his daughter. "Did she look better?"

Trowa mulled it over in his head for a moment. "I haven't seen her before, but she didn't look _that_ bad. If she were a dog, I wouldn't put her out of her misery yet."

Treize finally reacted, looking affronted. "_Don't you dare compare my daughter to a dog!_" he hissed madly, standing up from his seat.

Trowa, as per usual, did not see what he had done wrong. "I wasn't," he said.

Treize sat back down with a huff.

Heero let the whole incident pass, well used to Trowa's lack of tact.

Irea ducked out the door. "I heard noises," she warned lowly. "I don't want to be able to hear you lot talking. Get out if you want to be talking above whispers."

Nobody moved. Nobody argued either.

Irea walked toward them and sat in the one empty chair at the table. "No feeling in her legs at all. It may be too late for them. But aside from that, the problem seems solely in her lungs. She's breathing remarkably better now that she's inhaled vapors. They're making her sick but she's a good girl, won't let me take the vapor away.

"Oh and thank you for bringing Lady so quickly, Trowa dear. The young mistress has already hugged her to sleep."

Milliardo took a sip of his wine. "You'll just let her sleep? What if the dog bites her?"

Trowa looked insulted at the idea that his dog _could_ bite.

Irea spoke before he could though. "No reason not to let her sleep. Lady will keep her warm and safe. Furthermore, dogs breathe rather obviously. If the girl stops breathing, as the letters say she has, the breathing of the dog will remind her in her sleep to breathe."

Milliardo obviously sincerely doubted this.

"Done it before," Irea said, expecting his look of disbelief. "It works."

"Furthermore," Trowa said. "Lady will whine and howl like a madman if she stops breathing. Also, Lady has a history of getting upset around people that are incurable. So the fact that she will let the girl cuddle right up to her is a good sign."

Irea nodded. "Stuff her with food. Make her sleep lots. Move the legs and fingers around every three hours. Vapors for the lungs. Confinement to clean rooms. Dog stands watch, keeps her warm. She doesn't need anything for pain-"

"But she is in pain!" Treize said.

Irea shook her head. "She's in discomfort. She's in trauma from the fear of death and from the fact that she can't move her legs. The pain she has is all in the fear and the fact that she can't breathe without pain. The vapors help with that."

Irea mused for a moment. "All in all, she's actually not as bad as I expected. It's possible she'll survive –"

The dog barked. Everyone jumped, even though it was muffled through the door.

Trowa opened the door to check on them. MarieMaia was sleeping, her little chest rising obviously, with no blankets over her, just a soft nightshirt. She was warm from her fever. Lady was licking her on the face, with no reaction.

They all went to the door to look in. Irea didn't think to warn them off, it was such an odd occurrence for Lady to bark that she was still shocked. Lady sat up on the bed, another odd thing – when told to stay, any dog trained by Trowa would stay within an inch of where they were told, in the same position.

Trowa walked in. Lady was moving her front paws anxiously, staring at him, as if begging for guidance.

Irea spotted it first. "Good girl, Lady," she cooed, walking straight toward Mariemaea, who was tossing in her sleep – tiny, little anxious tosses.

Lady whined.

Irea went straight for Mariemaia, holding her still.

Heero went straight for the cabinet inside the room, knowing what was going on, and tossed Irea a satchet of herbs, who stuck them under Mariemaia's nose.

Mariemaie slowly stopped moving.

"Has there been someone watching her while she slept?" Irea asked quietly.

"Me," Treize answered. "The first few nights after we left, she was too feverish to be left alone. After that she wouldn't let me leave her."

"Does she do that twitching all the time?"

"Since she's been sick, yes."

Irea frowned, then turned to the dog again. "Good girl," she cooed.

Trowa didn't seem to understand what was going on, in fact, only Irea really knew what was, but he shrugged and assumed it was good, and thus, the dog needed rewarding.

He walked to Lady and picked her up off the bed – no mean feat because the dog probably weighed as much as he did.

"Good girl," he said, voice full of gruff, pleased emotion that a dog would easily understand. He roughly scratched her back then dumped her back on the bed, showing her an open hand, which she licked sloppily, then promptly lay back down again, in the exact same position she had previously been instructed to stay in.

Mariemaia had woken again, but the resettling of the dog on her bed made her close her eyes. "Can Papa stay?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," Irea said, surprising everyone. "Go back to sleep, little one." Irea turned to Treize, saying in a hushed tone, "If she's having fits in her sleep, someone has to stay with her. She was saying some weird things earlier, I think now she might be a bit delirious. Has she been drinking?"

Treize nodded. "I've enforced that. But I haven't been able to stop her from hurling it back up."

Irea nodded. "Dehydration can cause some pretty fancy deLíriums. She's probably seeing tentacle hands in her sleep."

Heero snorted. Irea smirked.

"These," she rattled the pouch of herbs in front of Treize, "are a light sedative. Most healers don't use these. I do. Stick them under her nose if she so much as twitches. She can have one sniff an hour. Any more and she's likely to lose cognitive ability forever. Don't overdo it."

Treize took the pouch from her.

"And for God's sake, don't smell it."

Treize went to the bed and sat beside it, putting the herbs on the bedside table. Lady didn't move an inch.

Irea pushed Heero and Milliardo out of the room. Trowa stayed, moving toward Treize.

Technically, the two were the same rank, just from different kingdoms. The identity of "Lord Barton" was that of an advisory Lord, Duke of a western province of Karen Miya.

Treize had more land, and the Kingdom he served was larger, but Trowa held an advisor position to the King. He was not only a Duke, but a Lord of the Court, which put him on a similar level. Higher, even, because this was his home ground.

"Give me your hand," Trowa said, kneeling beside the girl and dog.

Numbly, Treize held out his palm. Treize guided it under Lady's nose, who sniffed it, licked it a few times, then left to rest her head on Mariemaia's arm.

"She needs to know your smell if you'll be here. If she moves, grab her and put her back. She'll get the message." Trowa eyed Treize over, obviously trying to decide whether this man could be trusted with one of his precious dogs.

Eventually he sighed and gave up. If he tried anything, Lady would just maul him.

She was trained, not placid.

* * *

When Zechs Merquise finally made his grand entrance, it was _most_ surprising, and not for the expected reasons.

When Zechs finally did show up, his face was as white as his hair, and his bottom lip was actually split. Despite this, his teeth were still clamped down on it.

He strode straight to Heero, completely blind to Milliardo, who sat beside him.

"_You!_" he seethed, actually having the gall to grab Heero by the collar as he stood up. "_You and your lax security!_"

"What are you talking about?" Heero seethed, grabbing him by the wrists and forcing his hands from his clothing.

"First last night," Zechs roiled, "and now _this!_"

He tossed an object onto the floor at Heero's feet.

At first, the King didn't know what to make of it, as it was crushed quite badly, having been in Zechs' shaking, bloody fist this whole time.

As he realised that Zech's hand was bloody, it clicked what the object was.

It had thorns.


End file.
